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In  Executive  Committee— June  15th,  1885, 
Resolved^  That  in  order  that  the  papers  printed  under  authority  of  this  Society 
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Ipapers  of  XLbc  Sbaftespeare  Society?  of  "Wew  Uork 
mo.  11 


A  FURTHER  STUDY 

OF 

THE   OTHELLO 


Have  we  misunderstood  Shakes- 
peare's Moor? 


BY 

WELKER  GIVEN,  Esa 

A  Member  of  the  Shakespeare  Society  of  New  York 


NEW  YORK 

THE  SHAKESPEARE   PRESS 
Printers  to  the  Shakespeare  Society  of  Neto  York 


LONDON  :  KEGAN  PAUL,  TRENCH,  TRUBNER  &  CO.,  LTD. 

PATERNOSTER  HOUSE,  CHARING  CROSS  ROAD 

1899 


Copyright,  1899, 

BY 
WELKER  GIVEN. 

Ail  rights  reserved. 

Added  Copy 
GIFT 


•  •  •  •  •    • 


TO 


o 
GS3 


PREFACE. 


It  cannot  be  shown  too  often  how  Shakespeare 
cast  out  the  grossness  which  abounded  in  the 
sources  of  many  of  his  plots  and  which  his  age 
would  have  been  glad  to  have  had  him  enliven  with 
his  genius.  Stemming  popular  taste  and  example, 
he  strove  for  greater  purity.  The  Bankside  editors 
have  called  attention  to  such  purification  in  *'  Ham- 
let "  and  the  "  Merchant  of  Venice."  It  has  re- 
mained for  an  extended  effort  to  be  made  in  these 
pages  to  indicate  in  the  case  of  Othello  and  Desde- 
mona  how  |Shakespeare  portrayed  a  super-refined 
sexual  honor  with  a  delicacy  and  purity  far  beyond 
even  the  semi-sacred  miracle  or  mystery  drama  of 
his  youth,  from  which  in  part  he  obtained  the  sug- 
gestion. -"7 

CompSfing  the  "  Othello "  with  Cinthio's  Ital- 
ian tale,  and  bringing  into  consideration  the 
strangely  overlooked  influence  of  the  miracle  play, 
a  new  view  of  Shakespearean  purity  and  power  must 
dawn  upon  us  when  we  behold,  as  with  the  eyes  of 
the  Elizabethans,  the  last  stage  in  the  mesalliance  of 
black  and  white  portrayed  in  the  redeeming  colors 
of  the  old  nuptial  poetry,  so  significant  in  that  day, 
but  now  so  long  forgotten  that  its  spirit  and  its  dic- 
tion have  become  a  dead  letter.     Using  old  materi- 


VI  PREFACE. 

als,  Shakespeare  elevated,  purified,  and  transformed 
them  in  a  way  not  to  be  appreciated  until  his  fin- 
ished work  is  compared,  at  once  more  broadly  and 
more  closely,  with  that  which  went  before;  taking 
into  view  all  his  sources  of  suggestion,  not  merely 
those  of  current  criticism. 

The  theory  presented  in  these  pages  must  stand 
or  fall  as  an  entirety.  Yet  it  seems  to  me,  what- 
ever else  its  fate  in  the  judgment  of  students,  it  at 
least,  and  at  last,  answers  the  long-standing  accu- 
sation against  Shakespeare  of  sympathy  with  race 
prejudice  and  indifference  to  the  claims  of  the  com- 
mon people;  for  in  this  interpretation  we  have  a 
black  man,  who  was  once  a  slave,  rising  by  his  own 
merit  to  become  a  commander  over  white  nobles; 
awarded  the  surpassing  love  of  the  almost  angelic 
Desdemona;  above  all,  rendered  in  heart  and  soul 
truly  worthy  such  devotion,  and  invested  with  a 
nobility  and  loftiness  such  as  Shakespeare  has 
bestowed  upon  no  hero  of  his  own  race.  And  be- 
yond this  momentous  meaning,  the  theory  now 
presented,  if  true,  throws  a  finer  light  than  hereto- 
fore on  Shakespeare's  final  attitude  toward  the 
great  mystery  of  Christianity. 

Welker  Given. 

Chicago,  January,  i8gg. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     Shakespeare's    Greatest,    Most    Perverted 

Work .        i 

II.     A  New-Old  Solution 13 

III.  Palliation    tor     the    Marriage    and    the 

Moor 41 

IV.  The  Maze  of  the  Critics         ....      67 
V.     The  Debt  to  the  Mystery  Play   .        .        .     103 

VI.  A  Chord  that  Sounds  Throughout      .        .113 

VII.  Brabantio's  Severity  and  Othello's  Recall      174 

VIII.  Untying  a  Dramatic  Knot      ....     180 

IX.  Desdemona's  Fault  and  Fate  .        ,        .  C193" 

X.  The  Action ^2 

XI.  Elizabethan  Side  Lights  ....    217 

XII.  Othello's  Character  and  Career  ,        .     238 

XIII.  Palliation  Accomplished         ....     269 

XIV.  Culmination  of  the  Wedding  Plot        .        .     289 
XV.  Iago  and  his  Dupe 301 

XVI.    The  Final  Lesson     .        .        ,        .        .        .331 


vH 


THE  OTHELLO. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Shakespeare's  greatest,  most  perverted  work. 

Believing  Shakespeare's  *'  Othello  "  at  once  the 
greatest  and  the  most  perverted  of  his  works,  I  pro- 
pose a  theory  of  a  restorative  and  reconstructive 
character  as  to  that  play:  one  not  broached,  or 
spoken  of  as  possible,  anywhere  in  the  mass  of 
literature  which  has  grown  up  around  the  piece  in 
the  last  two  hundred  years.  Novel  as  this  interpre- 
tation must  seem,  it  is  presented  as  the  one  actually 
and  generally  understood  and  accepted  in  Shakes- 
peare's day;  hidden  from  us  by  a  strange  warping  of 
time.  To  support  this  view,  I  shall  offer  a  state- 
ment of  it  in  contrast  with  the  prevailing  theories, 
to  show  its  essential  fitness,  then  an  exegesis  of  the 
play  itself,  and  a  consideration  of  the  sidelights 
found  in  contemporary  Elizabethan  playwrights, 
together  with  a  character  study  of  Othello  and 

"  The  gentle  lady  married  to  the  Moor." 

The  play  of  "  Othello ''  has  been  pronounced  by 
Lord  Macaulay  "  perhaps  the  greatest  work  in  the 
world  " — a  striking  opinion  from  one  of  the  most 


^';: :    :  /.  '  v      the  othello. 

omnivorous,  yet  critical,  readers  of  ancient  and 
modern  literature  that  ever  lived.  It  is  evident, 
however,  that,  in  forming  this  judgment,  Macaulay 
did  not  test  minutely  the  probabilities  of  a  story 
which,  in  the  accepted  interpretation,  first  plunges 
a  fair  Venetian  belle  into  a  love  marriage  with  a 
blackamoor  chieftain,  and  in  a  few  hours  involves 
him  in  murderous  marital  mistrust  and  rage:  the 
great  essayist  looked  only  to  a  development  of  pas- 
sion so  marvelously  worked  out  that  the  self- 
poised,  invincible,  iron-willed  general  is  caused  to 
sink  in  a  day  under  a  conflict  between  love  strong 
as  death  and  jealousy  cruel  as  the  grave.  The  rush, 
sweep,  and  power  of  passion  impressed  Macaulay 
as  would  lightning  and  tempest:  lost  in  the  display 
of  elemental  force,  he  did  not  seek  for  fine  har- 
monies in  the  action  or  story. 

The  brilliant  English  critic  does  not  stand  alone. 
Before  and  after  Macaulay  multitudes  of  acute  and 
appreciative  readers  have  been  as  much  at  fault 
as  he  in  perceiving  only  the  outer  half  of  this  play; 
for  with  all  the  enthusiastic  applause  bestowed  upon 
the  piece,  even  its  warmest  admirers  have  passed 
without  notice  certain  strokes  of  dramaturgic  art 
which  ought  to  rank  among  the  highest  and  finest 
in  all  Shakespeare.  Others,  admiring  greatly  tire 
supreme  poetry  of  the  lines  of  the  piece,  have  yet 
failed  to  perceive  the  real  merit  of  the  action;  quite 
unable  to  sympathize  with  the  devotion  of  a  white 
wife  to  a  black  husbarfd,  they  have  felt  constrained, 
with  Wendell,  to  declare  the  plot  "  a  thing  apart " 
in  the  work  of  the  poet,  and  dramatically  a  botch. 


SHAKESPEARE'S  GREATEST   WORK.  3 

Others  still  have  sought  to  reconstruct,  soften,  or 
gild  the  story.  A  gem — a  gross  crudity — the 
world's  masterpiece — 2.  thing  brilliant  in  spots,  but 
deformed  and  unworthy:  can  such  clashing  opin- 
ions be  accounted  for  as  the  peculiarities  and  vari- 
ances of  individual  taste  when  they  come  equally 
from  ardent  lovers  of  Shakespeare  and  alike  from 
learned  and  unlearned? 

The  trouble  is  far  deeper,  and  lies,  as  I  shall 
maintain,  in  a  pervading,  general  error  of  interpre- 
tation. This  error  indeed  is  one  which  quite  fre- 
quently wrecks  the  whole  play  in  minds  that 
test  it  logically,  although  it  may  have  com- 
paratively little  effect  on  those  who  catch  the 
spirit  of  the  piece  instinctively  or  sympathetically, 
without  knowing  why  perhaps,  or  being  con- 
sciously dependent  on  reason  or  analysis.  Un- 
fortunately, however,  the  readers  who  admire  fer- 
vently without  such  "  living  reasons  "  as  Othello 
speaks  of  are  not  numerous,  not  fully  satisfied  in 
their  own  minds  by  Macaulay's  bold  generality, 
and  they  have  increasingly  few  converts  or 
followers  in  the  later  generations  which  per- 
sistently call  for  a  sign.  If  such  a  perversion 
as  I  assert  has  in  fact  been  fastened  upon  the 
"  Othello  "  by  modern  misinterpretation,  the  play 
can  be  rescued  for  the  mass  of  intelligent  readers, 
and  demonstrated  worthy  the  place  assigned  it  in 
Macaulay's  fine  sympathies,  only  by  a  logical  cor- 
rection of  the  deforming  error  and  the  assignment 
of  full  and  abundant  reasons  for  casting  it  aside. 

It  is  no  wonder  the  two  classes  of  minds  are  in 


4  THE   OTHELLO. 

conflict.  As  the  story  has  been  taken  it  was  inevi- 
table that  those  more  logical  than  poetically  lumi- 
nous should  have  come  to  think  this  play  "  broadly 
handled,"  or,  if  we  dared  speak  it  so  profanely,  an 
affair  of  blood  and  thundering  rage,  marvelous  for 
power,  but  not  an  example  of  the  finer  manifesta- 
tions of  dramaturgic  art.  But  it  has  been  viewed 
awry.  An  unperceived  delicacy  of  delineation 
by  the  poet,  and  a  peculiar,  potent  warping 
of  time,  I  believe  to  be  the  causes  of  a  deplor- 
able modern  deflection  which  has  brought  tlie 
readers  of  a  realistic  age  more  and  more  to  think 
the  meaning  fully  set  out  in- the  lurid  and  heroic 
passages  so  loved  by  the  robustious,  periwig-patcd 
fellows  of  the  stage;  to  believe  the  whole  tale  simply 
one  of  the  ruin,  through  false  animal  jealousy,  of  a 
passionate,  harem-bred  barbarian,  with  everything; 
concentrated  on  the  crude  but  fearfully  intense  pas- 
sion of  the  Moor,  and  without  any  careful  regard 
to  probability  or  harmony  of  plot.  "  Broadly 
handled  "  and  almost  "  a  gore  piece  "  are  the  ex- 
pressions of  logical  critics,  such  as  Wendell  and 
Young,  who  concede  the  play  to  be  unrivaled  for 
power  and  passion.  This  opinion  of  a  crude  and 
coarse  development,  saved  only  by  its  tremendous 
power,  quite  generally  acquiesced  in  at  present  ex- 
cept by  those  who,  like  Archer,  repudiate  the  piece 
as  wholly  unworthy  a  place  in  dramatic  art,  I  be- 
lieve to  be  one  of  the  most  serious  errors  into  which 
critics  of  the  drama  have  fallen;  and  I  afflrm  that 
even  the  opinions  now  on  record  which  are  most 
superebullient  in  praise  of  the  pb     are  yet  woefully 


SHAKESPEARE'S  GREATEST    WORK.  5 

inadequate  and  stop  far  short  of  a  true  apprecia- 
tion of  this  tragic  tale  as  it  was  written  and  as  it  was 
once  generally  understood. 

Not  that  truly  sympathetic  or  appreciative  critics 
have  ever  been  grudging  of  praise  for  the 
"  Othello."  After  Macaulay  we  have  many  of  the 
poetically  minded  who  place  it  at  the  summit  of 
Shakespeare's  work,  "Hamlet''  itself  giving  way; 
among  them  Clarke,  who  says,  **  this  arch  tragedy 
stands  unrivaled  " ;  Boas,  who  esteems  it  **  Shakes- 
peare's crowning  dramatic  achievement " ;  Lewes, 
who  pronounces  it  **  the  supreme  masterpiece  of 
dramatic  art";  and  Turnbull,  who  declares  it  "the 
unparagoned  masterpiece."  Yet  I  assert  even 
these  writers,  in  common  with  all  the  commentators 
both  derogatory  and  doting  who  have  left  their 
judgments  on  record  in  the  last  two  centuries,  have 
faihd  entirely  to  perceive  or  elucidate  the  subtle 
secret  of  the  extraordinary  power  of  the  play. 

But  it  is  not  for  the  merits  of  the  "  Othello  "  as  a 
masterpiece  of  literature  simply  that  I  propose  a 
more  extended  inquiry  into  its  meaning.  Great  as 
is  the  literary  value,  I  believe  it  has  a  higher  in  dis- 
playing a  conquest  of  alluring  and  besetting  sen- 
suous impulse  which  is  more  in  keeping  with  the 
dramatic  exigency  than  any  depiction  of  destruc- 
tive rage  and  jealousy  could  ever  be.  Further,  I 
believe  a  study  of  this  strangely  overlooked  secret 
of  the  play  will  afford  us  a  revelation  of  the  mind 
and  heart  of  Shakespeare  more  significant  and  even 
grander  than  any  hitherto  noted — a  disclosure  of 
the  poet  in  his  personality  as  well  as  in  the  power  of 


6  THE   OTHELLO. 

his  dramaturgic  art.  Simply  as  one  of  the  great- 
est masterpieces  of  the  drama  the  **  Othello  "  would 
merit  the  best  energies  of  criticism  to  get  it  out  of 
the  false  gaze  into  which  it  has  been  thrown  by 
modern  misunderstanding  and  misrepresentation, 
but  I  shall  aim  to  review  it  somewhat  exhaust- 
ively in  pursuit  of  a  broader  purpose,  holding  that 
when  he  came  to  write  this  play  Shakespeare  threw 
of¥  the  sad,  depressed  views  of  the  baser  passion 
which  had  long  hung  upon  his  genius,  and  was 
swept  up  to  a  portrayal  of  sensuous  impulse  com- 
pletely, conquered  by  heroic.  Christianized  man- 
hood. I A  supreme  value  of  this  play,  when  truly  in- 
terpreted, lies,  I  believe,  in  a  disclosure  of  certain 
overlooked  masterstrokes  of  the  playwright's  skill 
which  embody  not  only  finer  dramaturgic  art 
than  criticism  has  seen,  but  also  Shakespeare's 
highest  teaching  in  respect  to  such  matters  as  sex- 
ual morality,  race  prejudice,  and  the  great  mystery 
of  the  Christian  religion.  |  If  so,  the  revelation  is  of 
great  importance  from  the  standpoint  of  either  art, 
morals,  or  life,  and  calls  for  a  fuller  consideration 
than  one  might  care  to  give  the  play  merely  as  a 
literary  work.  Elsewhere  in  the  plays  there  is 
much  dispute  whether  the  views  expressed  of 
Christianity  are  those  of  the  playwright  or  only  of 
his  dramatis  personce,  but  in  the  *'  Othello,"  it  seems 
to  me,  we  may  get  behind  the  characters  and  see 
Shakespeare  himself  in  his  final  attitude  toward 
great  questions  of  life  and  religion.  No  such  in- 
terpretation has  been  put  upon  the  play  heretofore 
in  all  the  prolonged  and  exhaustive  study  it  has  re- 


SHAKESPEARE'S  GREATES7'   WORK.  7 

ceived;  and  I  am  alive  to  the  seeming  presumption 
of  offering  such  a  one  now,  and  to  the  necessity  of 
adducing  proofs  that  shall  be  indeed  "  probal  to 
thinking." 

First,  let  us  put  the  *'  Othello  "  in  a  true  perspec- 
tive of  distance  and  color. 

Schlegel  has  justly  complained  of  lago  that  he 
"  dissolves  in  the  rudest  manner  the  charm  which 
imagination  casts  over  the  relation  between  the  two 
sexes,"  and  he  might  have  added  that  Shakespeare 
came  near  this  same  offense  in  earlier  years,  when 
not  under  any  necessity  of  depicting  debasing  en- 
thrallment  of  body  or  mind,  and  when  the  only 
excuse  for  the  venturesome  exploit  was  that  it  was 
done  in  a  poetic  manner.  Like  Burns,  like  Byron 
and  Boccaccio,  like  a  great  array  of  the  poets  of  im- 
agination and  passion,  Shakespeare  at  one  time 
glorified  the  baser  passion  almost  as  a  thing  apart 
from  its  final  purpose  in  the  physical  and  spiritual 
necessities  of  the  race. 

The  poem  of  "  Venus  and  Adonis  "  was  the  worst 
abuse  of  Shakespeare's  earlier  career  in  the  glori- 
fication of  carnal  beauty,  and  we  are  told  every  frail 
one  in  London  had  a  copy  of  it  on  her  table. 
Taine  was  too  strong,  however,  in  insisting  there 
was  little  difference  between  the  love  of  a  woman 
and  that  of  the  charger's  '*  youth's  fair  fee  "  in  the 
poet's  pictures  of  fleshly  impulse  at  this  stage  of 
his  career.  Venus  argues,  indeed,  that  the  palfrey, 
as  he  should, 

**  Welcomes  the  warm  approach  of  sweet  desire/' 


8  THE   OTHELLO. 

and  holds  up  the  example  as  one  for  imitation,  but 
strong  assertion  is  made  respecting  the  natural  duty 
of  Adonis  to  beget  and  leave  his  likeness  upon  the 
earth  after  he  had  passed  away,  although  we  have 
to  recognize  it  as  subordinate  to  the  appeal  to 
seize  on  advantage  of  the  solicitation  for  its  own 
sake.  The  subject  is  sensual;  the  manner  of  treat- 
ment sensuous.  The  reproductive  impulse  seems 
to  be  celebrated  almost  for  itself  alone — for  its 
blandishments  and  seductions,  for  its  animal  fire 
and  energy. 

Just  as  other  bodily  appetites  indulged  solely  for 
desire  and  without  regard  to  ultimate  purpose  lead 
inevitably  to  discomfort,  mal-ease,  and  misery,  so 
with  the  great  impulse  of  sex.  So,  too,  with  the 
glorification  thereof  in  literature.  From  such  error 
as  **  Venus  and  Adonis  "  there  must  be  reaction  or 
ruin:  it  was  reaction  which  came  to  Shakespeare. 
Swifter,  sooner,  and  more  complete  than  with 
Burns  or  Byron,  the  recoil  swept  over  Shakespeare 
almost  immediately  after  "  the  first  heir  of  his  in- 
vention "  was  given  to  the  world,  and  thereafter  we 
find  him  through  a  long  period  oppressed  and  sad- 
dened by  the  erotic  instinct  as  an  afifliction  or 
calamity  of  mankind,  with  no  longer  any  dispo- 
sition to  glorify  its  grosser  allurements. 

Clearly  as  this  turn  to  sadness  has  been  under- 
stood, criticism  must  remain  shut  out  from  great 
and  important  light  respecting  Shakespeare  until  it 
aw^akens  to  tw^o  great  outgrowing  and  uplifting 
truths.  We  must  know  (i)  that  the  ''  Othello"  is 
the  drama  above  all  others  which  represents  the  re- 


SHAKESPEARE'S  GREATEST    WORK.  9 

action  of  the  poet  from  the  youthful  outbursts  of 
sensualism  in  "Venus  and  Adonis";  and  (2)  that' 
this  piece,  while  marvelous  for  the  development  of 
passionate  agony,  carries  along  with  it  a  more  mar- 
velous underplot  once  appreciated  to  the  fullest  ex- 
tent, but  now  for  many  generations  wholly  lost  both 
to  readers  and  spectators  sitting  at  the  play — a 
depiction  of  impulse  no  longer  surrendered  to  base 
desire,  no  longer  crimsoning  maiden  virtue,  fouling 
marriage,  and  inflicting  untold  misery  and  debase- 
ment upon  mankind,  as  in  many  of  Shakespeare's 
earlier  works,  but  rising  at  last  into  the  blue  heaven 
of  love's  purest  story  and  displaying  a  star-like 
beauty  such  as  was  faintly  prefigured  in  his  first 
romantic  tragedy  of  "  Romeo  and  Juliet." 

Popular  appreciation  of  this  play  has  been 
ardent,  but  in  later  days  always  inadequate.  With 
its  highest  and  finest  beauty  overclouded  by 
the  worst  perversion  and  misinterpretation  ever 
brought  upon  a  literary  work, — a  mist  which 
I  hope  in  these  pages  to  dispel, — the  "  Othello  " 
has  yet  commanded  wide  admiration,  for  with 
all  its  supposed  surpassing  faults  the  world 
has  loved  it  still.  Without  the  aid  of  criticism, 
sympathetic  readers  have  long  instinctively,  and 
from  their  premises  illogically,  interpreted  the 
''  Othello  "  as  a  portraiture  of  something  more  than 
passionate  physical  jealousy;  as  a  work  widely  dif- 
ferent from  the  erotic  verse  of  the  poet's  youth.  No 
difficulties  of  interpretation,  no  questionings  of  the 
critics,  could  dim  or  scant  to  them  the  essential 
poetry  and  romance  of  the  blackamoor  warrior 


to  THE   OTHELLO. 

who,  returned  from  the  wars,  hailed  as  a  hero  of 
the  day,  and  with  his  unaccustomed  eyes  dazzled  by 
Venetian  society,  in  responding  to  the  old  senator's 
questions  about  his  stormy  and  adventurous  career, 
had  all  unconsciously  pictured  his  own  manhood 
and  his  own  worth  to  the  fair  daughter  who  lis- 
tened with  a  deepening  interest  in  one  who  had 
arisen  heroically  above  his  own  lowly  race  to  be- 
come a  general  over  the  army  of  Venice.  Un- 
learned critics  have  long  dwelt  with  fondness  on 
this  pure  romantic  picture,  and  art  has  found  a 
favorite  theme  in  portraying  Othello  telling  the 
story  of  his  life  to  Desdemona  and  her  father,  or 
later  defending  himself  before  the  Senate  for  steal- 
ing away  the  old  man's  child  and  heir.  We  see 
that  Othello's  story  revealed  him  in  the  maiden's 
appreciative  and  luminous  eyes,  not  merely  as  brave 
a^!^d-l^jCoic,  but  as  pre-eminently  one  of  that  class  of 
whom  it  rfray  be  said  that 

•'  The  bravest  are  the  tenderest, 
The  loving  are  the  daring." 

So  many  who  could  not  explain  or  defend  the 
black-white  marriage  have  still  felt  great  beauty  in 
the  play.  Sympathetic  readers  feel  from  the  first, 
despite  all  appearances  or  suggestions  to  the 
contrary,  that  the  affection  of  Othello  and  Des- 
demona was  singularly  pure  and  poetic  in 
its  rise;  that  the  blackamoor  warrior  aimed 
only  to  respond  to  Brabantio's  queries  when 
he  told  of  the  battles,  sieges,  and  fortunes  he 
had  passed,  of  disastrous  chances,  of  moving  acci- 
dents by  flood  and  field,  and  the  distressful  strokes 


SHAKESPEARE'S   GREATEST    WORK.  II 

which  his  youth  had  suffered.  It  has  been  felt  by 
all  poetically  minded  readers  that  the  affection  be- 
tween Othello  and  Desdemona  was  somehow 
anomalous  in  the  same  manner  and  degree  in  which 
it  was  distinguished  by  a  peculiar  and  unusual 
beauty.  Whatever  difficulties  may  prevail  else- 
where, in  that  famous  first  act,  explanatory  of  the 
past  career  of  the  pair, — a  jugular  thing  in  Shakes- 
peare's dramaturgic  methods,  and  yet  one  of  his 
finest, — the  situation  has  a  charm  which  can  never 
fade,  and  which  no  study  or  analysis  can  make 
plainer  than  we  catch  it  as  it  fell  from  the  poet's 
pen.  On  the  one  side  we  have  the  chivalric  war- 
rior, as  generous  and  gentle  as  he  was  heroic, 
brought  for  the  first  time  from  the  life  of  the  camp 
to  the  splendors  and  riches  of  the  proudest  Chris- 
tian city  of  the  world,  and  on  the  other  a  maiden 
who,  reared  amid  the  influences  of  art,  music,  and 
wealth,  is  the  most  beautiful  product  of  that  city, 
and  awakens  from  her  soft,  exquisite  life  to  find  the 
thrill  of  wonder  and  marvel  in  the  tales  told  by  the 
blackamoor  chieftain.  Surprise,  wonder,  marvel, 
enthrall  both,  and  upon  the  maiden  falls  the  added 
magic  of  pity  for  the  man  who,  in  telling  of  his 
deeds,  all  unconsciously  revealed  himself.  •  Rich  in 
all  that  wealth  and  culture  could  give,  the  home- 
keeping  Desdemona  appears  to  us  unmoved  by  her 
aristocratic  suitors,  and  despite  the  wanderlust  of 
her  race,  to  which  Othello's  strange  and  adven- 
turous career  at  first  appealed,  we  are  charmed  at 
the  natural  and  inevitable  kindling  of  her  pity,  then 
her  love. 


12  THE   OTHELLO. 

Yet  with  all  this  appreciation  of  the  richness 
and  pure  beauty  of  the  play,  it  seems  as  if 
even  the  most  sympathetic  have  too  easily 
limited  their  vision  to  the  foothills  in  the  pre- 
liminary uplift  of  the  first  act  and  shut  away  the 
ranges  and  mountain  peaks  which  lie  farther  back 
where  Alps  on  Alps  arise. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  NEW-OLD  SOLUTION. 

When  early  in  his  literary  career  Shakespeare 
enumerated  the  sorrows  which  should  attend  on 
true  love, — the  perversities  which  should  whelm  it 
in  song  and  story, — he  did  not  mention  any  un- 
wholesome, morbid  affinity  of  black  and  white,  but 
left  that  wholly  to  the  diaoolical  life  of  the  Eleazers 
and  Aarons.  No  playwright  ever  sought  more 
eagerly  for  vast  contrasts  to  be  overcome  by  a 
vaster  power  of  love,  but  at  that  time  he  thought 
the  obstructions,  which  were  to  strengthen  the  cur- 
rent, must  be  found  in  disparity  of  years,  station, 
and  fortune;  or  in  having  war,  death,  or  sickness 
lay  siege  to  Cupid's  sway:  he,  with  other  Eliza- 
bethan poets,  paused  long  on  the  bounds  of  Ethio- 
pia before  he  thought  of  crossing  and  perplexing 
imagination,  not  with  a  base  alliance  as  before,  but 
with  a  pure  marital  love  between  a  black-visaged 
warrior  from  Mauritania  and  a  fair  maid  of  Venice. 
But  in  the  fullness  of  developed  genius  there  came 
a  time  for  him  to  venture  even  that. 

It  was  a  bold  thing  to  bring  a  coal-black 
Moor  on  the  stage  as  the  husband  of  a  delicate,  lov- 
ing white  bride.  Englishmen  of  that  day  knew 
little  of  Moors,  usually  confusing  them  with  ne- 
groes, and  Shakespeare  probably  never  saw  a  black 


14  THE   OTHELLO. 

man  of  either  race.  The  Moor  was  known  in  the 
wars  of  distant  lands  as  a  fierce  and  terrible  fighter, 
who  had  to  be  rewarded  and  applauded;  as  a 
valued  mercenary,  but  naturally  irreligious,  treach- 
erous, vicious,  and  repulsive,  with  the  stamp  of  the 
infernal  regions  on  his  skin.  Shakespeare's  patrons 
would  have  given  a  unanimous  and  vigorous  reply 
to  the  notable  taunt  of  the  abolition  struggle  in 
America  over  two  hundred  years  later,  whether  one 
would  want  his  sister  to  marry  a  black  man.  But 
we  have  strangely  forgotten  that  if  Shakespeare 
may  never  have  seen  a  face  which  was  blackened  by 
nature,  he  had  no  doubt  many  times  gazed,  as  a 
child,  in  excited  and  wondering  awe  on  the  arti- 
ficially stained  ones  of  the  **  black  souls  "  in  the  old 
miracle  or  mystery  play  at  the  outdoor  perform- 
ance at  Coventry.  The  dark-skinned  faces  of  the 
doomed  in  the  old  mystery  had  so  associated  black- 
ness and  depravity  that  the  first  great  Moor  who  ap- 
peared in  the  secular  drama  of  the  Elizabethans  in 
lawful  love  with  a  white  woman  was  nevertheless 
termed  "  a  hell-begotten  fiend."  It  was  scarcely  less 
than  audacious  for  Shakespeare  to  bring  another  of 
that  color  upon  the  scene  as  the  husband  of  a  lovely 
white  wife  and  call  upon  the  playgoers  to  hail  him 
as  noble,  to  sympathize  with  the  joy  of  his  mar- 
riage, and  lament  its  sadness  when  assailed  by  fate 
and  villainy.  That  was  a  new  order  of  things  to  the 
Elizabethans;  and  the  real  truth  of  it  is  new  to  us. 
I  believe  there  remains  no  more  important,  fasci- 
nating, yet  neglected,  question  in  Shakespearean 
study  than  how  the  poet  came  to  risk  such  an  ex- 


THE   NEW-OLD    SOLUTION.  15 

traordinary  marriage  and  what  measures  he  took  to 
palliate  it — to  rescue  it  from  ofifense  and  invest  it 
with  poetic  and  pathetic  beauty. 

The  modern  conception  of  Othello  as  a  man  only 
a  little  darker  than  a  Spaniard,  and  as  fit  in  color 
as  in  other  respects  to  attract  Desdemona's  love 
glances,  could  never  have  been  intended  by  Shakes- 
peare. Not  only  are  the  faces  of  the  *'  black  souls," 
and  of  the  preceding  and  contemporary  Moors  of 
the  stage  against  it,  but  the  marriage  of  Othello  and 
the  fair  Venetian  is  presented  to  us  as  utterly  shock- 
ing and  unnatural  because  of  Othello's  blackness; 
Desdemona  herself  having  shook  with  fear  of  him 
at  first,  and  others  having  described  the  union  as 
one  likely  to  have  begun  in  the  practice  of  foul, 
lecherous  arts  upon  the  young  maiden  and  to  end 
in  the  birth  of  a  despised,  hybrid  offspring.  Bra- 
bahtio  admired  Othello  as  a  soldier;  he  abhorred 
him  as  a  son-in-law.  If  Othello  had  been  only 
*'  tawny,"  like  the  Prince  of  Morocco,  and  not  in 
strong,  offensive  contrast  to  Desdemona,  Brabantio 
could  not  have  objected  to  him;  for  he  was  the  most 
distinguished  man  in  Venice,  and  in  character 
worthy  even  the  magnifico's  fair  daughter;  while  the 
plain  but  astounding  thing  here  essayed  by  Shakes- 
peare, in  his  love  for  bold  and  thrilling  surprises, 
is  that  of  a  man  as  black  in  the  face  as  a  "  black 
soul,"  or  an  Eleazer  or  an  Aaron,  being  yet  so  white 
within  that  the  fair  belle  of  Venice  could  rightly  fall 
in  love  with  him.  Black  in  the  face,  but  white  and 
noble  in  spirit — what  manner  of  Moor  was  that  to 
astound  and  perplex  the  Elizabethans?    As  we  shall 


1 6  THE   OTHELLO. 

see  hereafter,  in  exploring  a  somewhat  new  field  of 
Shakespearean  study,  it  was  the  blackened  faces  of 
the  old  religious  miracle  or  mystery  play  which 
suggested  the  introduction  of  dark  visages  into  the 
secular  drama  in  the  form  of  Moors,  and  it  was  at 
that  same  source  Shakespeare  found  a  suggestion 
of  the  means  by  which -to  extenuate  the  marriage 
of  a  refined  white  woman  with  a  black.  His  debt 
to  the  mystery  is  greater  than  to  Cinthio. 

Prepared  to  mitigate  the  marriage  in  due  time, 
Shakespeare  first  sought  to  exploit  the  blackness 
of  Othello,  and  his  contrast  to  Desdemona,  to  the 
uttermost.  Since  he  wrote  for  the  stage,  and  the 
black  face  of  Othello  would  keep  the  contrast 
steadily  before  the  eyes  of  the  playgoers,  it  was  not 
necessary  to  emphasize  the  Moor's  complexion  in 
the  text,  yet  we  have  not  only  the  "  thick  lips  "  and 
"  sooty  bosom,"  but  other  extreme  and  painful  sug- 
gestions which  seem  to  accentuate  the  offensive 
side  of  the  marriage  beyond  any  possible  redemp- 
tion. He  never  could  have  done  this  had  he  in- 
tended simply  to  gloss  over  the  marriage  or  divert 
attention  from  its  offensive  side.  It  was  because 
he  held  in  reserve  a  resplendent  mitigation  for  even 
the  worst  phase  of  the  apparently  repulsive  union 
that  Shakespeare  first  threw  the  seeming  unnatural- 
ness  and  offensiveness  of  the  marriage  upon  the 
playgoers  with  redoubled  force. 

It  was  near  the  close  of  his  life  as  a  playwright, 
provided  at  last,  as  I  think,  with  a  needed  trans- 
forming dramatic  concept,  that  Shakespeare  boldly 
crossed  the  line  where  poets  and  dramatists  had 


THE  NEW-OLD  SOLUTION.  17 

paused  in  their  search  for  startling  contrasts — chal- 
lenged his  world  with  the  spectacle  of  mutually 
honoring  marital  love  between  a  black  husband  and 
a  white  wife.  Plainly  intending  to  throw  the  con- 
trast upon  us  in  utmost  shock  and  intensity,  he  does 
not  take  us  through  any  conciliatory  scenes  of  love- 
growth  and  courtship  which  might  have  been  so 
wrought  as  to  appease  and  gradually  dull  the  edge 
of  our  disgust;  he  thrusts  the  pair  upon  the  stage 
already  married,  and  contrives  that  the  first  ac- 
counts of  the  union  which  we  hear  shall  be  vile 
ones  from  vile  tongues.  There  can  be  no  mistake 
that  such  a  plan  and  such  a  beginning  denote 
an  intent  to  challenge  the  playgoer's  attention 
by  dealing  boldly,  openly,  not  evasively,  with 
the  long-forbidden  union  of  opposing  colors  in 
marital  life;  and  we  soon  see  this  purpose  exposed 
in  strong  relief,  all  other  features  being  reduced  to 
a  singular  simplicity,  and  the  story  relieved  of  every 
complication  which  could  interfere  with  or  distract 
attention  from  the  grand  central  design  of  a  sexual 
love  involved  in  the  mightiest,  most  appalling  dis- 
accord of  race. 

Especially  significant  is  it  that  the  color-crossed 
love  of  Othello  and  Desdemona  is  not  put  before  us 
in  an  early,  immature  state,  as  possibly  only  a  thing 
of  erratic  fancy  which  we  might  hope  to  see  re- 
pented of  and  abandoned  in  time.  No:  the 
lovers  are  already  married  and  apparently  on 
the  verge  of  consequences  never  to  be  undone. 
The  bold  determination  to  force  the  startled  play- 
goer to  the  brink  of  the  shuddering  abyss  is  unmis- 


«8  THE    OTHELLO. 

takable.  It  is  solely  to  magnify  and  intensify  the 
rank  race  difference  that  the  story  is  simplified  to 
a  degree  unknown  in  the  other  plays  of  Shakes- 
peare. There  is  scarcely  a  digression,  no  extrane- 
ous matter,  no  fairies,  no  witches,  no  ghosts:  as 
Wendell  says,  we  do  not  have  to  translate  ourselves 
into  the  spirit  of  a  remote  age  to  get  in  touch  with 
the  story.  Any  ordinary  dramatist  venturing  the 
risk  of  a  marriage  of  amalgamation  would  surely 
think  it  necessary,  early  as  possible,  to  do  some- 
thing to  promote  a  kindling  feeling  of  interest  in  the 
mismatched  lovers,  but  Shakespeare's  first  efforts 
are  daringly  directed  toward  placing  the  relation  be- 
fore us  in  a  way  to  stimulate  natural  revulsion 
rather  than  to  elicit  a  needed  and  reluctant  sym- 
pathy. Supremely  confident  of  his  ability  to 
justify  in  his  own  good  time  the  exploit  of  joining 
black  and  white  in  honored  marital  bonds,  he  set 
out  like  a  tight-rope  walker  who  first  magnifies  his 
difficulties  and  excites  the  fears  of  the  spectators  in 
order  to  get  all  the  help  of  contrast  for  a  later  tri- 
umphant exhibition  of  his  skill.  Determined  to 
put  the  black-white  difficulty  before  us  in  all  its 
rankness,  Shakespeare  aggravates  it  fearfully  in  the 
disgusting  language  of  lago  in  the  first  account  we 
get  of  the  marriage.  Stripped  of  all  disconnected 
matter  and  everything  that  can  draw  away  atten- 
tion,— fashioned  as  a  tale  purely  domestic  and  with 
nothing  recondite  as  in  **  Hamlet  "  and  "  Macbeth," 
— this  tragedy  is  one  in  which  the  playwright  con- 
centrates his  efforts  on  the  one  question  of  a  mari- 
tal relation  which  had  theretofore  been  thought  dis- 


THE  NEW-OLD  SOLUTION.  19 

gusting  in  life  and  too  abhorrent  for  literary  art  to 
touch  with  redeeming  grace.* 

So  strongly  at  first  does  the  play  present  the 
suggestion  of  odious,  morbid  passion  that,  despite 
the  unrivaled  excellence  of  the  verse,  many  accom- 
plished literary  critics,  and  unnumbered  playgoers 
among  the  unlearned,  have  condemned  the  whole 
thing  as  unworthy  Shakespeare  or  of  any  place  in 
refined  literature;  the  preliminary  challenging  and 
the  darkening  of  the  background — the  playwright's 
characteristic  **  striking  up  " — still  standing  against 
him  when  the  redeeming  work  of  the  whitened  and 
developed  contrast — his  "  stroking  down  " — is  no 
longer  seen.  "  I  have,"  says  Joseph  Crosby,  point- 
edly expressing  the  views  of  those  who  refuse  to 
turn  the  blind  side,  **  never  seen  a  fair,  beautiful 
Desdemona  fondled  on  the  stage  by  a  black,  burly, 
negro  Othello  without  feeling  intensest  disgust." 
Such  indeed  would  be  the  candid  expression  of  un- 
told numbers  who  have  felt  the  gorge  rise  at  the 
portrayal  on  the  stage  of  sexual  love  between  black 
and  white,  and  have  been  ready  to  give  sympa- 
thetic approval  to  the  gibe  and  fleer  and  notable 
scorn  of  Punch  in  the  famous  query  whether  the 
play  of  ''  Othello  "  could  be  considered  fit  for  an 
audience  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

It  is  the  blackness  of  the  Moor  alone  which  has 
excited  this  popular  revulsion,  for  the  actors  have 
always  been  too  true  to  Shakespeare's  design  to 
portray  Othello  as  disagreeable  in  anything  but 

*  Eleazer  antedated  Othello,  but  his  marriage  remained 
utterly  repulsive  and  without  extenuation. 


20  THE   OTHELLO. 

complexion.  He  was  undoubtedly  intended  by  the 
playwright  to  be  just  as  long  represented  on  the 
stage — a  man  of  noble  appearance  and  gallant  mili- 
tary bearing,  worthy  all  admiration  and  applause 
save  only  that  his  blackness  stamped  him  as  alien 
to  the  white  race  in  marriage.  Shakespeare  in- 
tended him  to  be  in  appearance  as  in  character  ele- 
vated and  commanding — in  every  respect  but  race 
and  color  a  fit  companion  for  Desdemona.  So  does 
he  dramatically  accentuate  the  one  great,  uncon- 
querable difiference.  We  can  cast  the  "  thick  lips  " 
aside  as  a  fleer  of  jealous  Roderigo,  but  the 
"  sooty  bosom  "  was  a  truth  seen  by  a  father  who 
knew  nature  could  not  intend  his  daughter  to  mate 
with  a  black  man,  however  noble. 

The  theatergoer  in  our  day  who  feels  rising  anger 
and  disgust  at  the  first  sight  on  the  stage  of  the 
black  Othello  and  his  fair  bride  is  no  modern  de- 
generate incapable  of  appreciating  old-fashioned 
tragedy  in  full  vigor,  nor  a  person  with  a  taste  more 
fastidious  than  that  of  Shakespeare's  day.  He  is 
instead  the  true  descendant  of  his  Elizabethan  an- 
cestor, dilates  with  the  same  emotion  and  inherits 
a  repugnance  to  intermarriage  Vv^hich  time  has 
changed  only  to  weaken  slightly  if  at  all.  He 
is  in  this  particular  essentially  the  same  person 
Shakespeare  had  in  mind  in  writing  the  "  Othello," 
his  feeling  of  revulsion  is  the  precise  chord  on 
which  the  dramatist  intended  first  to  play,  and  he 
would  be  affected  first  and  last  just  as  Shakespeare 
planned  to  afifect  and  did  affect  the  early  playgoers, 
were  it  not  for  a  peculiar  warping  of  time  in  the 


THE  NEW-OLD   SOLUTION.  21 

method  and  symbolism  of  the  play  which  I  shall 
presently  inquire  into  with  all  needed  minuteness. 

Our  century  has  fought  battles  terrible  as  any 
the  world  has  known,  and  changed  the  face  of  a 
Western  civilization  to  elevate  men  of  African  de- 
scent to  just  equality  of  political  right;  but  when  it 
comes  to  marriage  of  white  and  black  the  repug- 
nance is  well-nigh  as  strong  now  in  both  races  as 
it  was  when  the  '*  Othello,"  was  written,  and  still 
registers  nature's  persistent  struggle  to  keep  pure 
the  blood  of  races. 

Touched  as  we  are  with  awakening  disgust  in 
the  opening  of  the  play,  just  as  Shakespeare 
designed  and  just  as  were  the  early  audiences, 
it  is  our  supreme  misfortune  to  be  cut  off 
by  a  modern  deflection  from  following  the  trans- 
formation of  the  forbidden  love  as  it  unfolded  in 
redeeming  beauty  before  the  appeased  and  finally 
delighted  eyes  of  the  Elizabethans.  Not  seeing 
this  transfiguration,  Shakespeare's  greatest  work  is 
not  simply  dimmed  in  our  eyes,  but  disfigured  with 
a  foul  blotch ;  hence  the  writers  who  ask  us  to  be- 
lieve the  '*  Othello  "  the  masterpiece  of  the  world's 
dramatic  art  all  seek  by  evasive  or  by  direct  effort 
to  get  away  from  the  essentially  abhorrent  and  dis- 
gusting spectacle  of  black  and  white  in  marriage, 
so  powerfully  forced  upon  us  in  the  opening  of  the 
play.  They  seek  to  obscure  the  seeming  great 
ugly  central  fact  of  the  drama  which  Shakespeare 
most  did  emphasize;  to  draw  in  chalk  where  he  pur- 
posely and  determinedly  sketched  in  charcoal;  to 
dissipate  in  clouds  of  idealism  or  abstraction  or  to 


22  THE   OTHELLO. 

wipe  away  as  with  a  sponge  that  inky  complexion 
of  the  Moor,  so  repeatedly  and  strongly  accentuated 
by  the  dramatist  that  he  could  not  stop  until  even 
from  the  mouth  of  Othello  himself  it  was  declared 
to  be  "  black  and  begrimed." 

To  expunge  from  the  drama  the  precise  contrast 
of  race  which  Shakespeare  rendered  most  glaring 
has  been  a  difficult  undertaking,  but  modern  editors 
have  persisted  in  it  so  successfully  that  neither  on 
the  stage  nor  in  annotated  and  expurgated  editions 
can  the  ordinary  reader  or  playgoer  easily  find  the 
Moor  whom  Shakespeare  drew  and  described  as 
"  the  black  Othello."  With  the  blackness  refined 
into  mere  tawniness  of  complexion,  the  bold 
dramatic  achievement  based  upon  the  staring  race 
difficulty,  and  which  is  in  truth  the  highest  effort  of 
Shakespeare's  genius,  has  been  sadly  disfigured  be- 
fore modern  eyes.  Compelled  at  last  to  abandon 
the  stage  traditions  of  a  Moor  of  raven  hue 
as  they  come  straight  from  Shakespeare's  time, 
most  modern  actors  whiten  him  into  fitness  for  Des- 
demona  in  deference  to  audiences  that  cannot  en- 
dure an  inky  African  to  have  a  light-faced,  blush- 
ing wife,  while  the  few  who  keep  on  the  blacka- 
moor a  face  like  night  get  such  scant  patronage 
and  abundant  loathing  and  denunciation  for  their 
doubly  dark  representations  that  at  the  present 
rate  of  retrograde  movement  it  must  soon  become 
impossible  to  play  Othello  anywhere  with  a  coal- 
black  skin. 

While  the  prejudices  of  modern  theatergoers 
have  been  appeased  by  whitening  Othello  into  a 


THE  MEW-OLD   SOLUTION.  2$ 

tawny  brunette  not  offensive  in  contrast  with  his 
fair  bride,  the  commentators  have  not  been 
thoroughly  successful  in  the  effort  to  perform  a  like 
service  for  those  who  know  the  play  from  read- 
ing rather  than  from  the  stage  performance.  The 
difficulty  here  is  in  one  way  indeed  much  less  than 
with  playgoers,  as  readers  do  not  have  Othello's 
blackness  before  the  bodily  eye;  and  it  is  much 
easier  to  paint  the  blackamoor  sufficiently  white  for 
their  satisfaction  by  representing  that  he  was  a 
Moor,  not  a  negro;  that  Shakespeare  evidently 
knew  little  of  the  characteristics  of  the  negro  race 
Vv'hen  he  assigned  the  "  thick  lips  "  to  a  Moor,  and 
that  Moors  can  be  fairly  regarded  as  the  people  of 
the  white  race  who  live  farthest  south  and  have  the 
darkest  complexion. 

No  one  can  doubt  Shakespeare's  purpose  to  por- 
tray the  Moor  as  of  commanding  appearance  and 
dignity,  and  it  seems  at  first  glance  as  if  the  black 
upon  his  face  might  also  be  toned  down  to  inoffen- 
siveness.  So  far  everything  seems  to  favor  sketch- 
ing the  Moor  in  chalk  instead  of  charcoal;  but  the 
next  step  is  one  of  extreme  difficulty  for  the 
thoughtful  or  studious  who  dwell  upon  and  inquire 
into  the  piece,  as  careless  playgoers  or  surface  read- 
ers do  not.  If  Othello  is  not  black,  there  is  no 
reason  for  the  conflict  over  the  marriage  in  the  first 
place,  or  for  the  quick  spontaneous  rise  of  a  peculiar 
jealousy  within  it — and  the  great  wonder  of  Desde- 
mona's  love  is  taken  away.  If  Othello  was  so 
nearly  white  as  to  be  on  a  plane  of  proper  equality 
v/ith  Desdemona,  his  self-generating  anxieties  and 


«4  THE   OTHELLO. 

fears  are  no  longer  pathetic  and  pitiable;  they  are 
contemptible.  If  the  blackamoor  is  to  be  washed 
white,  the  strong  color  and  contrast  must  disappear 
from  the  play  or  remain  in  it  as  anomalies  without 
justification  or  explanation.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
theatergoer,  especially  if  not  also  a  student  of  the 
printed  page,  has  the  disjointing  of  the  play — the 
removal  of  the  tragic  principle  through  the  whiten- 
ing of  Othello  and  the  wiping  out  of  the  intense 
contrast  to  his  bride — made  up  in  some  degree  by 
the  vocal  and  visible  expressions  of  the  actors,  and 
is  led  to  think  there  must  be  some  adequate  reason 
for  the  storm  and  stress,  although  he  grasp  it  not. 
If  he  cannot  explain  the  marriage,  or  make  noble 
the  jealous  rage  of  the  Moor,  he  feels  that  there 
must  be  some  justification  for  both  and  suspects 
that  the  inability  to  give  an  adequate  reason  rests 
with  him  and  is  no  fault  of  the  play. 

Without  stopping  now  to  dwell  on  the  impro- 
priety of  whitening  the  Moor  either  by  the  arbi- 
trary method  of  the  actors  in  diluting  both  the 
stage  paint  and  the  lines,  or  the  more  ingenious 
effort  of  the  commentators  to  refine  his  blackness 
away  in  reasoning  and  speculation,  I  remark  again 
that  neither  was  known  in  Shakespeare's  time  nor 
for  ages  after — that  such  sponging  away  of  the 
strong  intensified  contrast  with  consequent  damage 
to  the  wonder  and  marvel  of  Desdemona's  love, 
and  to  the  high,  reverential  fears  of  the  Moor,  was 
never  thought  of  until  our  realistic,  unpoetic  cen- 
tury. An  extraordinary  circumstance,  surely.  The 
Elizabethans   were  vigorous  haters   of  the   black 


THE  NEW-OLD   SOLUTION.  «$ 

race,  victims  of  a  more  intense  prejudice  than  any- 
thing we  know,  and  were  accustomed  to  having 
Moors  portrayed  on  the  stage  as  Eleazers  and 
Aarons — detestible,  sensual  creatures,  black  alike 
within  and  without.  We  have  no  literary  reviews 
or  critiques  of  those  days  remaining  to  show  in  de- 
tail just  how  the  Elizabethans  took  the  "  Othello," 
but  such  scraps  as  Burbage's  funeral  elegy  are 
highly  significant  as  to  the  nature  of  the  effect  pro- 
duced, while  the  extent  of  the  impression  appears 
from  the  fact  that  the  piece  scored  an  exceptional 
popularity  on  the  first  production  and  long  main- 
tained it,  as  is  shown  by  the  frequent  calls 
for  new  editions  and  the  way  it  continued  to  hold 
the  boards.  The  evidence,  moreover,  is  incon- 
testable to  show  there  was  no  whitening  of  the 
Moor  in  those  days,  that  the  actors  always  used  the 
blackest  of  paint  upon  his  face.  The  Elizabethan 
Moor,  before  and  after  Othello,  was  usually  not 
only  black  in  color  but  repulsive  in  character. 
Egla,  "  the  female  Moor "  in  the  "  Spanish 
Curate,"  was  declared  by  her  mistress  to  be  "  a  foil 
to  set  my  beauty  of¥,"  and  she  thought  next  in 
order  she  must  have  "  the  devil  for  a  companion." 
Evanthe,  in  the  "  Wife  for  a  Month,"  picturing 
ironically  the  dreadful  things  she  might  do,  reaches 
a  climax: 

"  I  would  take  to  me  for  my  lust  a  Moor." 

Beaumont  bewailed  "  the  orient  pearl  joined  to 
the  sooty  Moor,"  but  reflected  that — 

••  So  hath  the  diamond's  bright  ray  been  set 
In  night  and  wedded  to  the  negro  jet." 


26  TIJE   OTHELLO, 

Zanthia,  in  the  "  Knight  of  Malta,"  is  painted  as 
black  in  the  face  as  in  character;  sketched  to  the 
Elizabethan  taste  as  an  Ethiop  of  raven  complexion, 
lustful  and  irreligious.  To  her  libidinous  white 
love  she  says  she  cannot  lisp, 

"  Nor  my  black  cheeks  put  on  a  feigned  blush," 

for  her  complexion  would  not  permit  powder  for 
white  nor  paint  for  red.     Yet — 

"  I  am  full  of  pleasure  in  the  touch 
As  e'er  a  white-faced  puppet  of  them  all." 

The  infamous  Mountferrat  knows  "  it  is  not 
love  but  strong  libidinous  will "  that  inclines 
him  to  this  *'  female  Moor,"  whose  arms  were 
"  jetty  chains,"  and  while  he  declares  passion  blind 
he  yet  has  to  contend  that  night  makes  the  hues  of 
Zanthia  and  the  fair  dame  alike.  Neither  he  nor 
any  otlier  character  is  blind  to  this  Moor's  color  or 
tries  to  soften  it.  She  is  called  a  "  black  pudding," 
a  "  tinder  box,"  one  of  **  black  shape  and  blacker 
actions" — ''hell's  perfect  character";  "a  pitchy 
cloud  " ;  **  a  night  hag  of  her  black  sire,  the  devil," 
"  a  branchc  black  beauty,"  "  a  bacon  face,"  "  a  chim- 
ney sweeper  " — one  that  "  hell  fire  cannot  parch 
blacker  than  she  is."  Mountferrat's  punishment  is 
to  seal  in  marriage  his  abominable  love  for  the 
female  Moor,  to  be  banished  and  commanded  to 
breed  "  young  devilings." 

Eleazer,  in  '*  Lust's  Dominion,"  was  unquestion- 
ably the  Moor  Shakespeare  and  his  audiences  had 
heard  the  most  of,  and  he  was  described  as  "  a  devil, 


THE  NEW-OLD   SOLUTION.  2? 

a  hell-begotten  fiend,"  while  he  himself  spoke  of  a 
disgrace  "  as  inky  as  my  face,"  and  his  associate 
Moors  were  said  to  have 

'•  Staring  faces  black  as  jet." 

Such  was  the  complexion  of  the  Moors  who 
immediately  preceded  Othello  on  the  Elizabethan 
stage.  And  Eleazer,  like  Othello,  is  described  as 
a  Moor  of  royal  blood.  What  would  Coleridge 
have  thought  of  this  parallel?  He  it  was,  chief 
among  those  who  have  struggled  to  whiten 
Othello,  who  asked  whether  we  could  imagine 
Shakespeare  so  ''  utterly  ignorant  as  to  make  a  bar- 
barous negro  plead  royal  birth."  We  may  doubt 
whether  Othello  and  Eleazer  were  intended  as 
negroes,  as  we  now  know  and  distinguish  the  race, 
but  they  were  meant  to  be  thoroughly  black — the 
very  opposites  of  the  white  women  with  whom 
they 'were  paired.  The  terms  negro  and  Moor  are 
applied  indiscriminately  to  Eleazer,  and  in  one 
place  he  is  styled  the  "  negro  king." 
f  Since,  then,  the  Elizabethans  knew  this  play 
chiefly  from  the  stage  portrayal,  and  Othello,  while 
kingly,  was  yet  rendered  as  black  as  a-feraFgedian's 
make-up  would  permit,  we  must  face  the  fact  of  the 
early  Moor-hating  audiences  weeping  and  sorrow- 
ing over  an  inter-racial  marriage  which  the  more 
tolerant  and  liberal  ones  of  our  time  cannot  endure.) 
The  "  Othello  "  gave  no  ofifense  to  the  Elizabeth- 
ans who  risked  their  ribs  getting  into  "  cock-pit, 
galleries,  boxes  "  to  witness  the  piece.  They  did 
not   demand   that   Desdemona's   coal-black   lover 


r. 


28  THE   OTHELLO. 

should  be  treated  like  that  other  Moor  whom  they 
were  delighted  to  have  planted  in  the  earth,  breast 
deep,  to  famish  and  rave  for  food,  with  a  sentence  of 
death  for  anyone  who  should  have  pity  on  him. 
That  kind  of  treatment  they  thought  proper  for  one 
Moor  who  aspired  to  equality  of  sex  with  a  white 
woman,  but  it  was  far  otherwise  with  Othello. 
They  recognized  him  as  a  hero  of  the  loftiest 
spirit  and  character;  they  were  moved  to  pity  by  the 
unmerited  woes  in  which  he  and  his  fair  Desdemona 
were  involved. 

So  far  from  Othello's  color  being  slurred  over  to 
the  minds  of  the  old  playgoers,  it  remained  just  as 
Shakespeare  intended  it,  the  main  source  of  the 
power  and  fascination  of  the  piece.  *  The  root  idea 
of  the  play — the  chief  fountain  of  the  piteous  and 
the  tragic — they  found  in  the  blackness  of  the  Moor 
and  in  the  startling  and  appalling  dramatic  difficul- 
ties arising  from  his  union  with  a  white  bride  of 
wondrous  delicacy  and  purityj[  They  found  tragic 
art  and  tragic  woe  in  exactly  that  which  nauseates 
us  as  something  painful  and  repulsive.  And  yet,  in 
all  the  minute  and  prolonged  study  bestowed  upon 
this  piece,  it  never  seems  to  have  occurred  to  com- 
mentators or  editors  that  there  must  be  a  potent 
and  luminous  reason  for  the  singular  contrast  be- 
tween old-time  and  modern  audiences  in  their  atti- 
tude toward  the  root  idea  of  the  play. 
Cit  is  my  conviction  that  the  repulsion  of  feeling 
against  this  play  often  experienced  by  cultivated 
people  simply  emphasizes  our  loss  of  the  key  to  a 
work  of  marvelous  beauty  as  well  as  power;  indi- 


THE  NEW-OLD   SOLUTION,  29 

cates  that  the  time  has  come  to  ask  whether,  as 
the  poet  wrote  the  piece  and  the  Elizabethans 
understood  it,  there  was  not  behind  and  beneath 
and  above  the  development  of  jealousy  another 
strong  development — some  fascinating  and  pow- 
erful extenuation  for  the  Moor,  some  half-justi- 
fying and  moving  plea  in  support  of  his  white  bride, 
wrought  out  in  the  peculiar  method  of  Shakespeare, 
who  did  most  delight  to  take  a  situation  painful  and 
repellent  in  actual  life  and  clothe  it  in  colors  evok- 
ing a  pathetic  and  thrilling  interest.^ 

Depend  upon  it,  the  Elizabethans  understood  the 
play  aright.  And  they  assuredly  saw  something  in 
the  intermarriage  which  we  do  not;  some  power- 
ful and  piteous  justification  of  *'  the  black  Othello," 
or  they  would  have  hissed  the  piece  from  the  stage 
rather  than  have  given  it  the  tribute  of  their  sorrow 
and  their  tears.  And  if,  hating  the  mating  of  black 
and  white  as  angrily  as  they  did,  their  sympathies 
were  worked  upon  and  moved  by  a  beauty  in  this 
marriage  which  has  faded  from  modern  perception, 
we  have  only  to  get  back  and  view  it  through  their 
eyes  to  escape  the  surpassing  perplexity  and  con- 
tradiction in  which  the  wedding  plot  has  been  in- 
volved in  our  time,  and  thus  secure  a  welcome  and 
needed  revelation  of  Shakespeare. 
\  We  are  told  in  the  funeral  elegy  of  Burbage  that 
the  '*  chiefest  part "  in  which  '*  beyond  the  rest  he 
moved  the  heart "  was  Othello.  He  excited  the 
deepest  sympathy  playing  the  role  of  a  black  hus- 
band of  a  white  wife  to  audiences  quick  and  hot  in 
their  prejudice  against  Othello's  color.^  Surely  this 


30  THE   OTHELLO. 

must  give  us  pause,  especiallyv  as  the  more  liberal 
modern  audiences  so  generally  revolt.  Burbage's 
part  is  further  described  as  that  of  the  "  grieved 
Moor " — another  surprise.  Naturally  we  should 
expect  an  Elizabethan  poet  to  characterize 
Othello  in  his  passion  as  a  madly  jealous, 
furious,  desperate  Moor,  a  fierce,  murderous, 
vengeful  Moor  (as  he  was  at  one  time),  but 
here  we  learn  that  he  most  moved  the  hearts 
of  the  Elizabethans  in  the  hour  when  he  gave 
way  to  sorrow  rather  than  anger,  when  truth 
and  honor  seemed  fading  from  his  world,  and  the 
noble  blackamoor's  heart  sank  within  him  to  find 
his  lifelong  ambition  and  even  his  occupation  gone 
— all  because  his  faith  in  v^^omanly  purity  was  lost. 
Oh,  how  bitter  and  moving  such  jealous  agony  as 

.  thai — cruel,  indeed,  as  the  grave! 

Iflt  was  not  the  infuriated  but  the  piteously  and 
wondrously  "  grieved  Moor  "  that  wrought  upon 
the  early  audiences.  And  yet  they  hated  Moors 
ordinarily;  looked  upon  them  as  fierce,  brutal, 
barbarous  creatures,  as  ill  fitted  to  arouse 
J  sympathetic  emotion  in  others  as  to  feel  it  them- 

selves. Why  did  they  not  see  in  Othello,  as  so 
many  later  generations  have  done,  simply  a  hot- 
blooded  African  who  thought  himself  cornuted  by 
his  white  wife  and  roared  through  a  terrific  storm 
of  animal  jealousy  and  rage?  They  saw,  of  course, 
the  fearful  fury  at  one  time,  but  at  another  they  saw 
something  that  moved  them  more.  Evidently  some 
great  change  was  wrought  by  Shakespeare  in  this 
play,  some  strange  reversal  was  effected,  when  the 


THE  NEW'OLD   SOLUTION.  3 1 

prejudiced  early  playgoers  were  compelled  to  sorrow 
with  a  "  grieved  Moor  "  and  feel  for  him  a  greater 
pity  than  for  Hamlet,  Romeo,  Brutus,  or  Lear.^y 
j^  iWas  a  marriage  of  amalgamation  ever  painted  in 
r  such  colors  before  or  since  ?i  ^hat  was  it,  then, 
that  aroused  such  deep  sympathy  for  the  black  man 
aggrieved  and  anguished  by  the  supposed  falsity  of 
his  white  wife?  What  was  there  about  such  a  mar- 
riage that  Elizabethans  should  weep  for  it?  Why 
did  they  not  rather  wish  to  see  it  destroyed  and 
have  the  mismatched  and  offending  pair  get  the 
punishment  they  deserved?/  What  is  the  meaning 
of  the  momentous  circumstance  of  Moor-hating 
Elizabethans  having  their  hearts  moved  for  Othello 
more  than  for  any  other  character  Burbage  played? 
The  answer,  it  seems  to  me,  is  simple,  and  must  be 
accepted  even  if  it  work  a  revolutionary  change  in 
the  literature  of  this  play.  \\ 
/  Presenting  a  color  taken  from  the  damned  in  the 
miracle  play,  and  having  just  contracted  a  mon- 
strous marriage  for  which  he  ought  to  be  punished, 
Othello  was  nevertheless  portrayed  by  Shakespeare 
in  a  way  to  compel  sympathy  and  fill  out  that  sin- 
gular contrast  outlined  by  him  long  before  of  one 
with  "  the  condition  of  a  saint  and  the  complexion 
of  a  devil."  Giving  Othello  that  character  and 
transforming  the  relation  with  Desdemona  until  it 
was  worthy  such  a  man,  Shakespeare  absolutely 
enforced  Elizabethan  sympathy  for  the  Moor  and 
his  marriage./ 

\    Back  in  the  old  mediaeval  miracle  or  mystery  play 
where  Elizabethan  dramatists  found  the  sooty  faces 


32  THE   OTHELLO, 

of  the  "  black  souls,"  which  they  adapted  and  repro- 
duced as  Moors  fully  as  wicked  and  forbidding, 
3hakespeare  found  also  the  device  which  was  to  re- 
deem the  union  of  a  blackamoor  joined  in  wedlock 
with  a  white — an  abstinent,  unconsummate,  holy, 
spiritual  marriage. 

/The  supreme  error  of  Shakespearean  scholar- 
ship in  dealing  with  this  play  lies  in  the  failure  to 
see  that  because  of  the  very  blackness  of  Othello 
his  marriage  with  Desdemona  had  to  be  purely 
spiritual,  platonic;  without  a  thought  of  the  physi- 
cal relations  of  sex-^formal  and  legal  in  respect  to 
society  and  the  law,  yet  in  reality  poetic  only,  void 
of  oflFense  and  sublime  in  its  transcendent  chastity  ) 
— that  he  took  her  in  the  form  of  wedlock,  but  to 
company  with  her  never.  \  / 

Taking  the  Moor  as  typical  of  all  that  was 
.  blackly  anti-Christian,  vengeful,  and  libidinous, 
Shakespeare  works  his  magic  upon  Othello  until 
he  stands  forth  not  only  a  Christian  and  an  ex- 
alted hero,  but  the  exemplar  of  that  time  which 
comes  to  the  most  ennobled  manhood  when  it 
pants  for  a  supersensuous  love,  abhorring  and 
scorning  all  passionate  or  selfish  desire;  when  it 
aspires  to  fix  and  seal  and  hold  forever  the  break- 
ing dawn,  the  early  spring,  to  survive  through 
life,  with  no  advance  to  burning  noon,  no  ripening 
summer,  no  autumn  harvests — only  the  fresh- 
ness, the  fragrance,  and  the  dew  continued  until 
death. 
/  In  this  solution,  which  is  now  presented  as  new, 
\  but  which  is  really  old,  the  Moor  is  very  black 


THE  NEW-OLD   SOLUTION.  33 

without,  but  the  whitest  of  men  within,  and  appeals/ 
powerfully  to  rational  sympathy. 
(""This  is  the  magic  wand  which  converts  the  moral 
and  artistic  difficulties  of  the  "  Othello  "  into  new 
and  radiant  beauties  and  shows  us  why,  beyond  his 
other  parts,  Burbage's  Moor  most  moved  the  Eliza-  .. 
bethan   heart. J]  Transfiguring   what    seemed    irre- 
deemably base  into  something  immortally  glorious, 
ennobling  him,  beautifying  her,  it  adds  an  intense 
and  peculiar  pathos  to  a  self-deception  piteously 
poignant  when  seen  to  be  born  of  a  self-assumed 
marital  austerity,  but  never  to  be  excused  or  pitied 
if  the  Moor  had  required  of  Desdemona  the  dis- 
charge of  the  conjugal  debt. 

/  The  proposition  of  a  long-standing  enigma  in  the 
"  Othello  "  being  solved  by  taking  the  marriage  of 
the  strange  lovers  as  platonic  solely  and  free  of  so- 
matic gratification  is  to  be  proved  only  by  a  careful 
examination  of  the  piece,  scene  by  scene,  and  act  by 
act,  together  with  the  oflfer  of  some  explanation 
how  a  meaning  properly  belonging  to  the  play  can 
have  remained  so  long  unseen.  An  instinctive  feel- 
ing is  likely  to  arise  of  something  far-fetched  in  the 
perception  of  an  ideal  and  poetic  marriage  where 
many  generations  of  readers  and  scholars  have  seen 
only  a  common  one  (or  rather  one  uncommonly 
bad  and  repulsive)  ;/but  there  are  good  reasons,  I 
think,  to  regard  this  sense  of  improbability  as 
springing  from  a  modern  misconception,  not  from 
anything  belonging  properly  to  Shakespeare  or 
rightly  implicated  in  his  art  or  method. 

Simply  because  Shakespeare  throws  before  us  the 


34  THE   OTHELLO. 

fact  and  form  of  legal  marriage,  it  by  no  means  fol- 
lows that  there  must  go  with  it  the  consummation 
of  the  accustomed  hymeneal  rites.  In  this  instance 
a  culmination  could  only  be  odious  and  offensive; 
and  the  bold  suggestion  of  it  may  well  be  only  for 
effect  and  contrast — a  preliminary  rousing  of  the 
imagination  to  be  followed  by  an  alternate  sooth- 
ing and  reawakening  by  gentler  methods.  We  are 
following  a  dramatist  whose  genius  was  as  poetic 
and  elevated  as  it  was  bold,  and  with  whom  we  are 
not  to  assume  the  commonplace,  the  matter-of-fact; 
neither  the  tamely  nor  the  offensively  probable. 
We  may  anticipate  either  trite  or  gross  naturalism 
from  the  novelists  and  dramatists  of  our  time  who 
aim  at  realism  in  the  gross,  and  rarely  risk  the 
shock  of  cold  water  for  glowing  and  ruddy  reac- 
tion; but  it  was  altogether  different  with  the  au- 
dacious genius  of  Shakespeare,  which  delighted  in 
strong  contrast,  in  swift  recoil  from  the  hideous  and 
alarming  to  the  surprise  of  the  beautiful  and  true. 
Nothing  could  be  more  characteristic  of  his  art 
than  first  to  have  the  marriage  come  before  us  in 
the  accounts  of  vile  characters  as  a  thing  to  excite 
disgust;  then  compel  us  to  catch  hopefully  yet  sus- 
pensively  at  glimpses  of  unusual  and  redeeming 
conditions  hinted  and  half  proved  through  act  after 
act,  but  not  demonstratively  established  until  the 
close. 

Bold  and  appalling  contrast  at  the  first;  then  a 
hope  of  Desdemona  a  saved  virgin  in  marriage  in- 
spiringly  suggested,  but  held  in  suspense  until  the 
last   act — what   could   be   more   characteristic   of 


TBE  NEW-OLD   SOLUTIOM.  35 

Shakespeare?  To  take  a  relation  which  disgusts 
the  ordinary  man  or  woman  at  first  sight — a  situa- 
tion which  in  real  life  would  be  odious  and  painful 
— and  develop  it  by  slight  and  suspensive  touches, 
following  bold  preliminary  shock,  into  extenuation 
and  redeeming  beauty  is  always  a  delight  with 
Shakespeare.  And  when  we  find  him  denot- 
ing, although  with  only  the  lighter  touches 
of  his  art  in  its  elusive  and  suspensive  phase, 
a  strangely  fine  development  in  a  marriage 
first  thought  strangely  abhorrent,  it  is  a  con- 
summate blunder  for  us  to  sink  lazily  back  into 
an  assumption  of  the  commonplace  instead  of  re- 
sponding to  the  secondary  and  gentler  incitement 
of  the  imagination.  That  Shakespeare  should 
essay  the  wonderful  thing  of  a  marriage  of  black 
and  white  which,  shocking  us  at  first,  should  gradu- 
ally be  caused  to  lose  every  tinge  of  offense  and  take 
on  a  fascinating  and  redeeming  beauty,  is  in  every 
way  most  natural  and  probable. /it  is  to  the  last 
degree  improbable  that  he  would  place  the  love  of 
white  and  black  before  us  on  the  stage  unless  he 
intended  to  cover  it  with  odium  and  condemnation, 
as  in  Aaron  and  Tamora,  where  the  baseness  of  the 
relation  matches  in  natural  and  social  wrong  the  de- 
pravity of  the  pair  who  are  parties  to  it,  saving  that 
he  had  in  view  the  pleasing  alternative  of  develop- 
ing it  in  lawful  marriage  into  a  strange,  redeeming 
beauty  which  should  elevate  it  to  the  plane  of  such 
high  characters  as  we  have  in  this  play./ 

The  theory  now  presented  is  no  doubt  revolu- 
tionary, but  worthily  so.     It  takes  the  play  out  of 


36  THE   OTHELLO. 

the  classification  so  long  given  it  as  "  a  thing  apart  " 
in  the  work  of  Shakespeare,  because  dealing  power- 
fully but  crudely  and  grossly  with  the  mere  furious 
animal  jealousy  of  a  black  who  thinks  himself  cor- 
nuted  by  a  white  wife.  Instead,  we  have  a  theory 
which  puts  this  play  in  line  with  the  unfailing  con- 
sistency of  the  Shakespearean  drama,  and  displays 
it  as  a  glorious  work  of  art  in  the  true  order  of 
the  great  playwright's  development — the  instance 
where  he  rose  to  his  highest  conception  of  purified 
love  and  threw  upon  a  black-white  marriage  ex- 
tenuation and  palliation  worthily  characteristic  of 
him  as  a  dramaturgic  artist,  and  differing  from  his 
other  work  only  in  surpassing  it  in  beauty  and 
pathos  and  disclosing  his  genius  at  its  highest  and 
finest. 

The  fact  of  a  disjointed,  unworthy,  and  discord- 
ant theory  of  this  play  having  been  long  accepted 
only  makes  it  the  more  urgent  the  wrong  should 
be  endured  no  longer,  but  ended  speedily  by  the 
acceptance  of  a  reasonable,  worthy,  truthful  version. 

Remembering  that  the  grand  difficulty  which  has 
involved  the  commentators  in  such  a  maze  springs 
from  the  offensiveness  of  a  completed  inter-racial 
marriage,  and  harking  back  to  the  symbols  of 
Elizabethan  dramatists  and  poets  in  denoting  the 
bliss  or  the  stress  of  early  marital  life,  we  shall  soon 
find  circumstances  to  give  us  pause  and  cause  us 
to  wonder  at  the  modern,  matter-of-fact,  dogmatic 
assumption  of  a  common,  or  rather  uncommonly 
bad,  marriage  when  the  method  and  spirit  of  the  old 
dramaturgic  art  point  unerringly  to  something  dif- 


THE  NEW-OLD  SOLUTION.  %^ 

ferent  in  this  instance.  We  shall  learn  of  a  depart- 
ment of  poetry  now  unknown,  but  flourishing  and 
popular  in  Elizabeth's  time,  and  denoting  early  joys 
of  marital  union  in  symbol  and  commemorative  in- 
cident, of  poetic  and  dramatic  concepts  of  marriage 
strangely  arrested  after  the  ceremony,  of  virginity 
prolonged  in  a  wedlock  failing  of  natural  comple- 
tion, and  of  tragic  complications  springing  from 
wedded  inequality,  such  as  render  it  in  the 
highest  degree  unlikely  Shakespeare  could  ever 
have  intended  a  gross,  disgusting  union  between  a 
Moor  dark  as  night  and  a  maid  fair  as  day  when 
the  familiar  method  of  the  hymenean  touched  by 
his  genius  could  vest  the  union  with  dramatic 
pathos,  power,  and  grandeur  worthy  of  the  piece. 

Looking  at  the  play  in  this  way,  we  must  learn 
to  say  of  the  love  of  Othello  and  Desdemona: 

"  'Twas  strange,  'twas  passing  strange  ; 
'Twas  pitiful,  'twas  wondrous  pitiful." 

And  that  was  true  of  Othello's  affection  even 
more  than  of  Desdemona's.  She  was  very  young; 
trusted  wholly  to  impulse  to  guide  her  in  affairs  of 
the  heart.  He  was  double  her  age,  a  man  whose 
position  made  him  regardful  of  the  proprieties  of 
life  and  disposed  to  guard  appearances  as  well  as 
realities.  He  was  the  trusted  chieftain  commis- 
sioned by  the  grave  and  reverend  senators;  and  he 
must  have  felt  the  need  to  justify  his  marriage  to 
them  and  to  those  high  circles  in  which  they 
moved,  and  into  which  he  had  broken  in  the  rude- 
ness of  elopement  and  secret  marriage.     A  man 


3^  THE  OTHELLO. 

of  Othello's  character  and  position  could  not  fail  to 
appreciate  the  inequalities  and  dangers  of  the  mar- 
riage into  which  he  had  so  strangely  entered.  Such 
a  man  could  not  but  apply  the  true  Shakespearean 
test  and  judge  the  relation  by  its  fitness  or  unfit- 
ness for  the  end  and  purpose  of  wedlock.  ( He 
would  realize  as  Desdemona  would  not,  and  could 
not,  the  impossibility  of  introducing  the  hybrid 
product  of  such  a  marriage  into  the  Venetian  so- 
ciety to  which  both  belonged.)  In  the  hymeneal 
poetry  of  Shakespeare's  time  the  conception  of 
motherhood  followed  immediately  upon  the  passing 
of  virginity  and  was  often  brought  into  the  bride- 
song,  as  in  Randolph's  lines: 

"  Methinks  already  I  espy 
The  cradles  rock,  the  babies  cry, 
And  drowsy  nurses  lullaby." 

Such,  indeed,  was  always  the  spirit,  if  not  the  ac- 
tual expression,  of  the  old  hymeneal  poetry  in  the 
fragrance  and  color  of  which  this  play  is  so  richly 
imbued.  Motherhood  was  hailed  at  once  upon  the 
passing  of  maidenhood,  and  was  celebrated  in  the 
bride-song,  wherein  the  poets  delighted  to  cast 
the  horoscope  for  the  firstborn  within  a  twelve- 
month. Often,  indeed,  the  anticipations  of  the 
poet  were  quicker,  keener,  than  that.  The  thought, 
hope,  and  ambition  of  early  motherhood  followed 
immediately  upon  the  bridal  occasion;  that  result 
was  looked  forward  to  as  the  most  ardently  desired 
and  welcome.  The  poets  did  not  hesitate,  in  con- 
gratulating the  bride,  to  hope  for  the  firstborn  to 
come  to  her  in  the  shortest  time  possible,  and  in 


THE  NEW-OLD  SOLUTION.  39 

one  of  his  loftiest  epithalamiums  Ben  Jonson  ap- 
peals to  the  bridegroom  to  "  informe  the  gentle 
womb."  Maidens  of  fifteen  and  sixteen  were  hur- 
ried forward  to  grasp  the  prize  of  motherhood  with 
hands  eager  yet  almost  infantile.  Audiences  fa- 
miliar with  such  customs  in  life  and  such  poetry 
could  not  but  think  it  most  natural  for  a  man  of 
Othello's  years,  position,  and  surroundings  to  pause 
to  think  of  the  natural  end  of  marriage.  And  if  so, 
how  could  he  reconcile  himself  to  casting  upon 
Desdemona  the  motherhood  of  hybrid  offspring? 
It  could  not  be.  Elsewhere  we  have  in  Shakes- 
peare an  abhorrent  picture  of  a  half-breed  black- 
amoor child  born  to  a  white  mother, — '*  a  babe  as 
loathsome  as  a  toad,"  notwithstanding  the  love  the 
black  father  bears  for  it  and  his  pride  in  the  fast 
color  which  never  changes  or  betrays  itself  with 
blushing. 

^The  Moor  who  had  a  child  born  to  him  by 
the  light-faced  Tamora  rejoiced  in  its  half- 
blackness;  taunted  those  whose  color  would 
flee  their  cheeks,  and  proudly  declared  his 
ofifspring  a  lad  of  another  leer;  but  no  white 
man  shared  his  pride.  Othello,  too,  was  a 
Moor,  but  in  character,  in  religion,  sentiment,  and 
ambition  the  very  reverse  of  Aaron.  Irregular 
marriage  and  hybrid  ofifspring  could  bring  no  joy 
to  him.  His  love  was  tinged  with  a  beautiful  and 
lofty  idealism,  springing  from  the  nature  of  the 
man  and  the  exceptional  circumstances  of  his  life, 
and  we  can  see  it  was  most  natural  that  his  affec- 
tion  for   Desdemona   should   be   purely   platonic^ 


40  THE  OTHELLO. 

Pitiful,  wondrous  pitiful  indeed,  that  this  grand 
hero  should  conceive  for  Desdemona  an  affection 
so  heavenly  and  so  full  of  renunciation  that  it  for- 
bade she  should  ever  become  a  mother  to  a  child  of 
his! 

Not  until  we  see  the  fact  of  absolute  abstinence 
in  the  marriage  can  we  comprehend  the  beauty  of 
Othello's  love  or  feel  the  tragic  agony  of  its  final 
defeat. 


I 


CHAPTER  III. 

PALLIATION    FOR   THE    MARRIAGE    AND    THE    MOOR. 

The  critics  who  assume  to  pronounce  the 
"  Othello "  a  masterpiece  of  literature,  with- 
out pointing  to  an  adequate  plot  or  offering 
any  explanation  of  the  great  primary  difficul- 
ties which  have  so  vexed  both  learned  and 
unlearned,  have  no  right  to  such  oracular  opin- 
ions. From  Wilson  and  Johnson  to  Boas  and 
Moulton,  Shakespeare  admirers  have  gone  into 
panegyric  over  the  lines,  sentiment,  and  sweep  of 
passion,  which  all  can  appreciate,  while  they  have 
left  unreconciled' the  peculiar  discords  which  have 
grated  so  harshly  upon  thousands,  and  which  yet, 
properly  understood,  are  the  mainsprings  of  tragic 
patho.3^:,^he  blackness  of  the  Moor  and  his  over- 
quick  and  seemingly  unmanly  doubts  of  loyal  Des- 
de'mona. 

I  have  dwelt  on  the  first  of  these  problems, — the 
offense  of  the  marriage  of  amalgamation, — but  there 
remains  in  the  accepted  interpretation  the  even 
more  trying  one  of  a  man  of  lowly  race,  drawn  as  a 
hero,  turning  quickly  and  outrageously  against  the 
fair  young  bride  who,  loving  him  with  ideal  affec- 
tion, is  supposed  also  to  give  the  blackamoor  all  of 
nature's  proofs  of  devotion — more  than  one  of  his 
complexion    could    ask,    expect,    or    rightly    re- 


42  THE   OTHELLO. 

ceive.  If  it  were  indeed  so,  her  superiority  of  race 
and  blood  only  proved  her  love  the  more  deserving 
of  fit  return  from  him;  not  alone  Desdemona's  due, 
but  the  voice  of  Nature  herself,  would  demand  of 
Othello  extraordinary  trust  and  confidence  in  such 
a  wife.  If,  therefore,  as  we  are  told  by  all  the  critics 
and  all  the  commentators,  Othello  was  accepted  by 
Desdemona  on  a  full  equality,  bounteously  grati- 
fied, rewarded,  endowed  with  all  a  woman  could  be- 
stow,— received  of  her  a  demonstration  of  afifec- 
tion  all  the  more  worthy  of  profound  appreciation 
because  of  her  immense  sacrifice  and  concession  in 
ignoring  her  racial  superiority, — and  he  then  turned 
against  her  within  a  month,  what  shall  ever  make 
him  in  our  eyes  a  hero  rather  than  a  dastard?  To 
take  the  word  of  a  disappointed  office-seeker,  not 
that  of  such  a  wife!  Have  we  not  a  right  to  expect 
that  wrong  like  this  shall  have  some  explanation  or 
extenuation  before  we  pay  to  the  Moof  the  tribute 
of  our  sympathy  and  our  tears? 

The  position  of  the  critics  and  commentators*  who 
call  upon  us  to  admire  fervently,  but  without  fry- 
ing to  soften  the  ineffaceable  fact  of  Othello  provr 
ing  quickly  and  falsely  doubtful  of  a  loving  wife,  is 
like  that  of  one  who  should  sudd-enly  come  upon  a  V 
stranger  apparently  in  violent  grief  and  should  say,     V 
Here  is  a  noble  man  sadly  overcome  by  unmerited 
sorrow:   there   can  be   no  mistake — the   tones   of  t   .\ 
voice,  gestures,  and  expressions  of  countenance  are."  ... 
most  true — those  of  an  heroic  nature  breaking  be-.;  • 
neath  a  cruel  load.     This  might  all  be,  and  yet  the  . 
situation  not  be  one  for  real  and  enlightened  sym- 


PALLIATION-  FOR    THE  MARRIAGE.  43 

pathy.  What  is  the  nature  of  the  man,  what  the 
character  of  the  load  put  upon  him?  Did  he  exert 
himself  faithfully  to  avoid  it  or  to  ward  it  off?  Has 
he  proved  himself  of  courage  and  honest  faith,  or  a 
craven  and  a  white  feather?  Not  until  such  queries 
as  these  are  answered  can  we  enter  fully  into  the 
situation  and  sympathize  with  the  grief  which  has 
come  upon  another.  The  tremulous  tones  of  voice, 
the  pained  expression  of  face,  may  arouse  an  in- 
stinctive feeling  of  pity,  but  that  stops  far  short  of 
the  knowledge  of  motives  and  circumstances  neces- 
sary to  genuine  sympathy  either  in  life  or  literary 
art.  Tears  shed  even  at  a  deathbed  may  be  croco- 
dile, not  real.  The  woman  weeping  over  the  sol- 
dier off  to  the  wars  may  be  neither  mother,  wife,  or 
sweetheart,  nor  in  any  way  respectable.  The- 
nardier,  with  his  sign  "  Veteran  of  Waterloo,"  was 
neither  patriot  nor  hero,  but  a  robber  of  the  dead. 

Whether  in  our  daily  affairs  or  in  literature,  real 
sympathetic  interest  must  have  a  deeper,  stronger 
support  than  mere  outward  expression  or  appear- 
ance of  affliction.  However  a  man  may  groan, 
moan,  or  writhe  in  distress,  for  true  sympathy  we 
must  know  something  of  what  lies  behind — of  the 
person  and  the  manner  in  which  he  has  become  in- 
volved— whether  by  accident,  through  his  own 
fault,  or  perchance  through  a  cruel  and  wrongful 
deflection  of  some  generous  and  honoring  impulse 
— and  just  as  the  circumstances  disclose  one  condi- 
tion or  the  other  will  the  fellow  feeling  of  pity  be 
awakened  in  greater  or  less  intensity.  If,  where  the 
pathos  is  just,  we  are  to  experience  any  true  or 


44  THE   OTHELLO, 

adequate  compassion  we  must  be  taken  fully  into 
the  secret;  must  be  touched  by  the  highminded  and 
worthy  purpose  or  supposed  duty  animating  a  well- 
meaning  character,  and,  passing  on,  have  this  feel- 
ing grow  and  expand  into  a  deep  anxiety  and  sor- 
row, as  we  see  villainy  or  chance  turning  a  noble 
purpose  against  itself  and  inflicting  bitter  and  un- 
deserved suffering.  In  life  and  in  story,  only  as 
we  know  the  inner  struggles  and  inspirations  of  the 
person  can  we  enter  into  genuine  sympathy  with 
him  in  his  more  or  less  undeserved  sorrow. 

But  what  of  "this  man,  this  Moor"?  Unnum- 
bered critics  and  commentators  have  told  us  the 
tones  of  Othello's  agony  and  passion  are  powerful, 
most  true,  unquestionably  those  of  a  noble  nature 
in  the  toils,  just  as  they  have  assured  us  Desdemona 
is  all  sweetness  and  the  marriage  really  beautiful; 
but  in  the  one  case,  as  in  the  other,  we 
should  be  entitled  to  something  more  than 
a  mere  outward  "  seeming,  even  if  that  were 
pleasing  and  not,  as  in  this  instance,  on  its 
face  contradictory  and,  in  one  view  certainly, 
forbidding  and  repelling.  Our  need  in  respect  to 
Othello  is  not  for  the  instinctive  feeling  aroused  by 
his  early  half-suppressed  moans  or  by  the  tre- 
mendous bursts  of  his  later  uncontrolled  fury. 
These  outward  evidences,  if  we  heed  them  alone, 
may  strike  us  as  true  and  powerful,  and  so  com- 
mand a  certain  responsive  sympathy,  but  for  tragic 
pathos  and  power  we  must  be  taken  much  farther. 
There  must  be  some  secret  deeper  than  surface 
seeming  into  which  we  are  to  be  taken  if  we  are  to 


PALLIATION  FOR    THE  MARRIAGE,  45 

feel  the  compassion  of  tragedy  for  Othello  when, 
not  a  month  married  by  the  longest  estimate,  he 
turns  without  cause,  and  seemingly  with  shameful 
weakness,  against  the  woman  who  had  just  given 
up  home,  friends,  fortune,  and  country  in  her 
boundless  love  for  him.  Nature  tells  us  a  woman 
who  could  do  that  deserves  manhood's  fullest  debt 
of  trust  and  honor.  However  offensive  her  act  of 
amalgamation  may  be  to  us,  to  the  blackamoor  it 
could  only  be  the  last,  most  grateful  proof  of  devo- 
tion— one  that  called  in  return  for  a  measure  of  con- 
fidence pressed  down,  heaped  up,  and  running  over. 

It  is  even  more  vitally  necessary  to  the  tragedy 
that  we  should  be  able  to  enter  into  Othello's  feel- 
ings and  to  sorrow  with  him  than  that  we  should 
look  tenderly  upon  Desdemona  as  one  not  sullied 
or  stained  in  delicacy;  but  every  consideration  of 
art  requires  the  play  to  meet  both  these  conditions. 
To  gain  one  without  the  other  cannot  suffice;  but 
a  consummated  marriage  renders  both  impossible. 
To  follow  Coleridge  in  thinking  the  jealousy  of  the 
Moor  lofty  and  beautiful  while  his  marriage  re- 
mains actual  and  unpalliated  is  possible  only  for 
minds  which  sink  all  logic  in  imagination. 

Why  did  Shakespeare  thus  doubly  and  deliber- 
ately involve  himself?  Are  we  to  suppose  he  did  not 
see  his  way  out  of  a  complication  so  ruinous?  The 
modern  device  of  straining  the  language  and  the 
situation  to  whiten  Othello  into  a  proper  husband 
will  not  do;  it  may  indeed  save  Desdemona  and 
wipe  offense  away  from  the  marital  relation,  but  if 
it  button  up  these  difficulties  it  unbuttons  worse  in 


46  THE   OTHELLO. 

taking  away  all  explanation  of  the  furious  oppo- 
sition and  storm  over  the  marriage,  and  also  in 
leaving  the  accepted  and  bountified  Moor  without 
excuse  or  palliation  for  his  outrageously  sudden 
suspicion,  if  his  wife  was  indeed  giving  him  nature's 
last  proof  of  devotion. 

If  the  marriage  was  not  unconsummate  we 
are  taken  into  no  confidence,  shown  nothing 
that  can  account  for  or  excuse  the  Moor's 
conduct.  "  Even  Othello,"  says  Symonds,  *'  falls 
into  lago's  trap  so  stupidly  as  to  refrigerate  our 
feelings."  Critics  like  Archer,  and  a  host  of  the  un- 
learned who  are  not  to  be  overcome  by  mere  out- 
ward emblems  of  woe,  but  who  ask  for  some  logic  in 
the  development  of  character  and  plot,  have  not 
been  able  to  accept  Othello's  temptation  in  the  theo- 
^  ries  offered  heretofore./ Supposed  content  and  with 
perfect  faith  in  Desdemona,  the  Moor,  within  thirty 
minutes  from  the  time  the  first  suspicion  of  her  is 
broached,  accepts  a  fixed  belief  of  her  infidelity  and 
determines  to  kill  her,  and  that  too  on  the  unsup- 
ported assertion  of  lago,  the  defeated  military  rival 
of  the  man  he  named  as  her  paramour.  With 
liberal  allowance  for  lago's  unequaled  power  of  in- 
sinuation, and  for  poetic  license  in  compressing  the 
events  of  weeks  within  an  hour,  it  is  still  incredible 
any  honest  and  confiding  husband  of  ordinary  rela- 
tions could  be  so  overwhelmed  after  receiving  a  tiib- 
ute  the  highest  a  woman  could  pay  and  in  his  case 
a  proof  of  extraordinary  devotion.  Can  we  believe 
the  upright  Othello,  receiving  such  evidence  of  de- 
votion, would  so  quickly  surrender  to  despicable 


PALLIATION  FOR    THE  MARRIAGE.  47 

jealousy?  Can  Shakespeare  have  intended  such 
incongruity?  can  he  have  fallen  into  it  through  care- 
lessness? 

If,  as  has  been  so  freely  and  yet  unwarrantably 
taken  for  granted,  Othello  was  an  actual  husband 
accepting  a  husband's  dues,  he  was  bound  to  repay 
Desdemona  with  a  husband's  confidence,  and  his 
drop  to  final  unbelief  of  his  wife  as  a  result  o:  an 
interview  of  half  an  hour  is  the  act  of  a  dastard  or 
an  insanely  jealous  wretch,  not  of  a  man  fit  for 
rational  sympathy./  Accepting  the  prevailing 
theory,  thousands  of  unlearned  playgoers  have 
gazed  dumbfoundedly  on  the  scene  of  Othello's 
temptation,  wondering  what  reason  there  could  be 
why  the  noble,  trusting  Moor  should  so  soon  be- 
gin to  show  the  whites  of  his  eyes  and  writhe  in 
mean  jealousy.  They  could  easily  think  of  disap- 
pointment and  disillusionment  falling  quickly  upon 
Desdemona,  but  not  that  it  should  be  so  with 
Othello.  [They  can  only  suppose  the  ground  must 
have  been  prepared  in  some  way  which  they  fail  to 
see;  but  students  know,  as  the  play  has  been  taken, 
there  has  been  no  credible  explanation  of  the 
plunge  of  the  noble  Moor  into  a  jealousy  most  ig- 
noble and  unworthy  of  the  man. 

It  cannot  help  the  matter  to  whiten  Othello  into 
a  handsome  Spaniard-like  brunette,  for  just  as  we 
better  fit  him  for  Desdemona's  embraces  and  sup- 
pose his  actual  acceptance  by  her,  the  meaner  and 
more  ungrateful  his  suspicions  become.J 

Did  Shakespeare  ever  plunge  into  this  desperate 
dilemma  without  a  way  out?    If  it  seem  utterly 


/ 


48  THE   OTHELLO, 

impossible  to  adjust  the  conditions  of  a  marriage  of 
amalgamation  so  as  to  save  the  delicacy  of  a  white 
bride  and  justify  the  sudden  jealousy  of  a  black  hus- 
band who  had  been  rewarded  richly,  lavishly,  even 
unnaturally,  and  owed  extraordinary  trust  in 
return,  we  must  remember  that  in  Shakes- 
peare's art  the  greater  the  difRculty  the  greater 
the  magic  of  overcoming  it.  What  could  more 
keenly  excite  the  interest  and  curiosity  of 
Elizabethan  playgoers  than  to  have  them  feel 
that  the  drama  could  be  saved  only  by  some- 
thing seemingly  impossible — a  marriage  harm- 
less to  the  delicacy  of  Desdemona  and  mitigating 
the  weakness  of  doubt  in  the  Moor?  How  could 
that  be?  Yet  without  it  how  could  Othello  be 
saved  as  a  hero  of  tragedy? 

If  an  lago  had  ventured  to  whisper  sus- 
picion to  any  of  the  heroic  and  evenly,  prop- 
erly wedded  characters  of  Shakespeare,  the 
question  would  have  been  as  to  his  own  fate, 
not  that  of  his  story.  Brutus  would  have  felled  at 
once  a  defamer  of  Portia;  Macbeth  would  have 
struck  to  the  earth  the  man  who  hinted  of  slander 
against  the  wifely  honor  of  a  woman  whose  little 
hand  was  red  and  conscience  black  with  other 
crime.  To  listen  weakly  and  credulously  would 
render  these  men  dastards,  and  so  with  Othello  if 
married  as  they  were./  And  how  married  otherwise 
— how  a  marriage  harmless  to  the  delicate  bride 
and  exculpatory  of  the  bridegroom's  quick  fears? 
Deliberately  involving  himself  in  a  situation  where 
dramatic   justification   v/as   seemingly   impossible, 


PALLIATION  FOR    THE  MARRIAGE.  49 

Shakespeare  stimulated  curiosity  and  doubt  to  the 
highest  point  as  the  best  preparation  for  the  subse- 
quent revelation;  but  later  generations  see  only  the 
difficulty,  not  the  solution,  somewhat  as  Carlyle  said 
the  half-literal,  half-parabolic  writings  of  Goethe 
were  "  studied  by  dull  heads  in  the  literal  sense 
alone."  But  it  is  not  dullness  which  has  blinded 
modern  students  to  the  redeeming  grace  of  the 
"  Othello." 

There  is  an  ample  explanation  of  the  jealousy,  as 
of  the  color  problem,  in  the  great  secret  of  the  mar- 
riage, if  we  only  have  the  aided,  enlightened  vision 
necessary  in  our  day  to  see  it.  If  we  were  amazed 
by  the  spectacle  of  dainty,  delicate  Desdemona 
wedded  with  a  black,  and  with  a  forbidden  marriage 
presented  as  the  center  of  a  poetic  drama,  the  play- 
wright certainly  intended  us  to  be  startled  with  the 
additional  perplexity  of  the  superb  Othello  involved 
in  the  belittling  and  debasing  passion  of  jealousy. 
Jealousy  is  naturally  a  mean,  contemptible  emotion, 
suited  to  comedy  and  satire  rather  than  high 
tragedy — the  last  for  which  we  can  feel  real  sympa- 

»thy,  and  the  last  for  the  noble  Moor.  Surely,  then, 
our  minds  must  be  stimulated  to  look  for  some  re- 
deeming, palliating  circumstance.  Perceiving  and 
feeling  that  it  could  never  be  dramatically  right  to 
involve  the  grand  Othello  in  the  meanness  of  com- 
mon jealousy,  Coleridge  and  other  critics  have  been 
at  pains  to  distinguish  what  they  term  his  "  noble 
agony  "  from  the  wretched  fishing  spirit  of  hus- 
bands like  Leontes;  but  they  have  offered  no  ade- 
quate explanation  why  the  passion  so  ignoble  in 


so  THE   OTHELLO. 

Others  could  be  sublimely  pathetic  in  the  Moor. 
They  have  felt  the  truth  without  being  able  to  ac- 
count for  it. 

Fatally  erring  and  failing  to  get  in  true  touch,  the 
critics  do  not  perceive  that  Othello's  toils  as  a  man 
of  "perfect  soul,"  yet  smitten  with  doubts  of  his 
wife,  should  compel  us  to  class  his  passion  as  a 
thing  apart  from  common  jealousy,  and  watch  the 
action  expectantly  for  the  pprtrayal  of  it  in  some 
unique  and  touching  formynTatching  in  this  spirit 
the  early  vindication  of  the  courtship  from  all 
wrong  and  grossness,  and  observing  how  perfectly 
it  fits  the  exalted  character  of  Othello,  we  should 
hearken  confidently  to  his  promise  of  a  strange,  rev- 
erent treatment  of  his  bride;  entering  into  the  noble 
renunciation  at  the  first,  we  should  watch  it  expand 
even  as  in  every  honest  heart  sympathy  must  grow 
with  it;  and  after  we  have  joyed  over  the  birth  and 
growth  of  the  glorious  barbarian's  purpose  we  must 
inevitably  grieve  as  it  is  warped  and  turned  awry, 
until  at  last  we  see  the  lowly  humility  of  a  black 
man,  who  took  his  white  bride  in  the  resolve  to  keep 
her  in  sacred  reserve,  so  abused  that  her  holy  isola- 
tion from  him  seems  perverted  into  base  oppor- 
tunity for  another,  and  he  believes  Desdemona  has 
outraged  him  in  soul  and  honor  as  she  never  could 
y  in  body.  Then  we  see  how  Othello's  early  anx- 
ieties over  the  happiness  and  safety  of  the  marriage 
had  so  worn  upon  him  that  when  lago  began  the 
temptation  he  had  only  to  aggravate  and  inflame 
them  into  actual,  positive  doubt  of  Desdemona.  So 
seen,  the  doubts  and  fears  of  the  '*  grieved  Moor," 


PALLIATION-  FOR    THE  MARRIAGE.  5' 

in  his  lonely  spiritual  marriage,  lose  all  trace  of  ani- 
mal jealousy  and  become  both  probable  and  pite- 
ous; his  black  complexion,  absolutely  necessary  to 
his  sufferings,  exalts  them  and  extenuates  his  weak 
confidence,  even  as  it  moves  us  with  a  pity  we  could 
never  feel  for  a  white  and  actual  husband. 

Thus  the  intense  contrast  of  black  and  white  in 
marriage,  which  literary  art  has  so  rarely  dared 
to  touch,  becomes  here  the  heart  and  the  life 
of  the  tragedy,  Shakespeare  boldly  and  trium- 
phantly crossing  the  line  where  other  poets 
and  dramatists  have  stopped,  the  splendid  con- 
cept of  the  non-somatic  union  enabling  him 
to  join  two  of  discordant  races  in  a  trans- 
figured wedlock.  So  at  last  we  behold  in  the 
unconsummate  marriage  the  reason  Shakespeare 
could  venture  such  appalling  complications;  why, 
keeping  Othello  black,  he  could  rescue  Desdemona 
at  last  from  a  fate  absolutely  ruinous  if  the  union 
was  a  completed  one;  why  in  the  abstinent  and  un- 
natural strain  of  the  Moor  he  could  develop  a  jeal- 
ousy neither  mean  nor  base,  but  born  of  loneliness 
and  aloofness,  purged  utterly  of  hurt  desire,  and  yet 
running  inevitably  into  cruel,  undeserved  sorrow. 
Such  transfigured  results  can  come  only  from  a 
marriage  which  was  itself  transfigured. 

The  unconsummate  marriage  works  the  marvel 
of  glorifying  Othello's  jealousy  even  as  it  accom- 
plished the  wonder  of  preserving  Desdemona's 
delicacy.  Failure  to  see  it  disjoints  the  whole 
plot.  Jf 

If  even  to  save  hero  and  heroine  and  evolve  a 


5*^  THE  OTHELLO. 

great  tragedy  it  seems  in  our  time  strangely  indeli- 
cate or  rude  to  press  so  far  into  the  inner  life  of 
marriage,  it  was  not  so  in  Shakespeare's  day,  when 
throbbing  nuptial  poetry  and  daring  hymeneal  ob- 
servances invited  close  approach  to  the  bridal  cham- 
ber and  rendered  its  secret  one  for  the  highest 
tragic  art — a  truth  vital  to  the  ''  Othello." 

If  Othello  is  whitened  into  an  equalized  and 
proper  husband  of  Desdemona  in  consummated 
marriage,  the  great  surprise,  contrast,  growth  of  the 
drama  is  lost;  and  all  we  gain  in  removing  offensive 
blackness  is  more  than  offset  by  putting  upon  the 
Moor  such  a  color  and  such  relations  that  his  jeal- 
ousy must  be  mean,  ignoble,  animal,  utterly  de- 
structive to  a  character  for  whom  we  ought  to  cher- 
ish a  strong,  enlightened  sympathy;  whereas  we 
must  feel  a  profound  and  true  compassion  when  we 
see  the  early  preparatory  doubt  of  the  marriage 
rooting  itself,  not  in  the  sexuality  of  a  common  hus- 
band, warmed,  rewarded,  tributed, — mean  and  un- 
grateful beyond  excuse  in  such  a  man, — but  in  de- 
nial and  renunciation  with  assurance  sapped  away 
and  the  starved  impulse  of  physical  nature  enforc- 
ing a  severe  revenge  on  the  content  of  the  lofty 
soul  who  had  dared  to  defy  her.  Then  offense 
drops  from  the  blackness,  and  it  becomes  noble  with 
pathos  sounding  in  the  language  of  the  Moor,  as 
witness:  **  Mine  own  weak  merits  ";  ''  Haply  for  I 
am  black  ";  ''  She  had  eyes  and  she  chose  me." 
/  If,  on  the  other  hand,  Othello  was  white  enough 
to  be  accepted,  and  was  accepted,  by  Desdemona  as 
y    a  husband,  he  was  still  a  man  of  a  lower  race,  and 


PALLIATION  FOR    THE   MARRIAGE.  53 

he  would  owe  her  more  than  ordinary  marital  trust 
— a  most  unfaltering  and  grateful  confidence.  His 
turn  against  her  would  then  be  outrageous.  Far 
different  if  only  a  husband  in  name  and  self-ex- 
cluded. If  Othello  was  so  black  that  he  could  not 
accept  from  willing  Desdemona  what  the  meanest 
of  white  husbands  could  take — if  he  stood  aloof  in  a 
reverent,  holy,  distant  blackness,  declining  at 
honor's  command  a  sacrifice  ever  ready  and  with- 
standing a  temptation  ever  before  him — then  his  po- 
sition touches  the  chords  of  pathos  just  as  it  sounds 
also  those  of  admiration,  and  he  looms  high  among 
tragic  heroes  and  his  quick  jealousy  has  sad  reason 
and  excuse. 

Though  married,  Othello  had  all  of  an  unwed 
lover's  doubts  and  fears — the  conjugal  debt  was  not 
only  unpaid,  but  he  had  put  away  all  prospects  of  its 
payment — placed  himself  where  a  suitor's  unrest 
was  never  to  be  calmed  by  acceptance  as  a  husband 
— forever  cut  himself  ofif  from  the  assurance  which 
he  of  all  married  men  most  did  need,  because  of  his 
ever  present  sense  of  lowliness,  aloofness,  and  in- 
equality of  race.  Here  is  the  perfection  of  tragic 
pathos;  a  renunciation  and  abstinence  glorious  and 
honoring  in  the  Moor,  but  perverted  by  the  re- 
venges of  nature  and  by  the  craft  of  lago  into  a 
constant  trial  and  torment  to  the  soul  of  the  man 
who  conceived  it./ Alas,  alas!  Reject  this  inter- 
pretation, and  the  plot  of  the  "  Othello  "  must  in- 
deed be  ''  an  enigma  "  alike  in  a  moral  and  a  dra- 
matic sense:  accept  it,  and  the  story  becomes  at 
once  one  of  the  most  perfect  and  exalted  ever  con- 


54  THE   OTHELLO. 

ceived   by   genius,    and    capable    of   withstanding 
every  test  that  can  be  appHed  to  it. 

Not  seeing  this,  not  perceiving  the  true  nature  of 
the  quasi-marriage,  with  its  cruel,  doubt-breeding 
aloofness  of  sex,  and  hence  incapable  of  appreciat- 
ing the  innermost  tension  of  Othello,  the  commen- 
tators have  been  compelled  to  treat  him  as  the  vic- 
tim of  a  jealousy  which  they  are  powerless  to  vest 
with  fit  attributes  of  palliation,  elevation,  or  pathos. 
The  same  blunder  which  wrecks  Desdemona's  deli- 
cacy and  fixes  a  repulsive  marriage  as  the  axial  cen- 
ter of  the  play  renders  it  impossible  to  put  Othello 
in  a  position  where  there  can  be  excuse  for  his 
quick-coming  doubts.  Realizing  painfully  that  the 
passion  of  undiluted  marital  jealousy  would  con- 
vert the  Moor  into  a  pitiful  rather  than  a  pitiable 
character,  Ulrici  and  others  insist  that  whexe  con- 
jugal infidelity  actually  exists  and  is  not  falsely  sus- 
pected indignation  and  grief  over  it  should  not  be 
demeaning;  and  they  then  argue  that,  while  Des- 
demona  was  not  guilty,  Othello  fully  believed  she 
was.  This  is  quite  strained,  even  for  the  present 
time.  In  Shakespeare's  day  such  reasoning  would 
have  provoked  hooting.  The  wronged  husband 
was  then  generally  termed  a  cuckold  and  regarded 
like  the  contemptible  victims  of  the  cuckoo,  which 
puts  its  eggs  in  the  nests  of  other  birds.  The  horns 
and  the  "  horned  plague  "  so  frequently  spoken  of 
by  Elizabethan  playwrights  refer  to  the  appearance 
of  the  cuckoo ;  and  its  victims  were  thought  fit  rep- 
resentatives of  the  wretched  and  contemptible  crea- 
ture who  could  not  retain  the  affections  of  his  own 


PALLIATION  FOR    THE  MARRIAGE.  55 

wife.  Othello's  dread  of  being  made  a  cuckold — a 
fixed  figure  for  the  unmoving  finger  of  scorn — is 
expressed  with  fiery  and  furious  wrath,  but  we  may 
be  sure  a  black  husband,  jealous  of  a  white  wife  and 
having  such  relations  that  he  could  think  himself 
actually  cornuted,  would  have  been  esteemed  by  the 
Elizabethans  a  fit  subject  for  low  comedy  or 
satire,  never  for  high  tragedy. 
/  While  in  his  agony  Othello  calls  himself  a  cuck- 
old, the  pathos  of  his  situation  lies  in  his  not  being 
such,  in  fact  or  in  possibility,  but  in  having  pitiable, 
not  pitiful,  reasons  for  the  doubts  which  seize  upon 
him.  The  wretch  who  had  so  slight  hold  upon  his 
wife  that  he  could  not  retain  her  affections,  or  who 
had  so  little  confidence  in  himself  and  in  her  that  he 
could  yield  quickly  to  false  suspicion,  was  always  a 
contemptible  character  on  the  Elizabethan  stage, — 
a  cully,  a  cuckoo  dupe, — and  it  transcends  belief 
that  the  scholarship  of  later  centuries  should  think 
Shakespeare  actually  intended  to  put  upon  Othello 
the  toils  of  a  quick,  false,  contemptible,  morbid  jeal- 
ousy instead  of  perceiving  how  supremely  needful 
it  is  we  should  feel  forced  to  look  for  something 
different  and  higher — should  be  quick  to  enter  into 
the  suggestion  of  an  abstinent  marriage  and  the  pe- 
culiar and  extraordinary  reasons  it  presents  for  a 
jealousy  that  was  peculiar  and  extraordinary. 

The  conception  of  a  marriage  unco-nsummated 
because  of  the  intense,  disqualifying  blackness  of 
the  Moor  is  a  superb  double  stroke.  It  enabled 
Shakespeare  not  only  to  venture  the  color-crossed 
union,  but  to  turn  it  into  sweetness  and  grace,  sav- 


56  THE   OTHELLO. 

ing  Desdemona  in  all  her  exquisite  delicacy  and  re- 
deeming the  conjugal  relation  while  it  serves 
also  in  a  most  pathetic  manner,  when  we  know  the 
inner  truth  of  his  abstention,  to  place  Othello  on  a 
footing  of  unnatural  and  unequal  restraint  and 
abasement  where  he  could  be  no  cuckold,  but,  in 
his  reserve  and  aloofness  from  his  bride,  could  be 
preyed  upon  by  the  pitiable  doubts  of  starved  assur- 
ance until  his  noble  renunciation  becomes  the  sad 
source  of  irrepressible  and  unmerited  anguish.  In 
the  secret  of  the  unconsummated  union  we  see  a 
beauty  in  the  marriage  .and  feel  a  pathos  in  its  ruin 
otherwise  impossible/^But  we  can  neither  sympa- 
thize with  Othello  nor  understand  Desdemona  until 
we  first  perceive  the  wonder  of  the  marriage.  The 
truth  is  we  are  not,  and  cannot  be,  let  into  any  ade- 
quate dramatic  secret  until  we  know  that  those  who 
would  expunge  Othello's  blackness  from  the  play, 
in  order  to  make  him  an  acceptable  husband,  are 
striving  to  cast  out  the  unparalleled  dramatic  power 
and  pity  of  the  Moor  being  unaccepted  because  of 
his  own  heroic  choice,  his  reverence  for  his  bride, 
and  his  determination  to  save  her  from  a  wrong  ma- 
ternity even  against  herself. 

Failing  to  grasp  this  axial  truth,  Shakespearean 
editors  and  critics  have  involved  the  "  Othello  "  in 
one  of  the  densest  mazes  in  literature.  "  All  critics 
of  name  have  been  perplexed  by  the  moral  enigma 
which  lies  under  this  tragic  tale."  Such  was  the 
lament  of  the  Edinburgh  Review  half  a  century  ago 
over  this  play,  and  since  then  the  confusion  has  only 
increased.    The  fact  that  the  commentators  feel  in- 


PALLIATION  FOR    THE  MARRIAGE.  57 

stinctively  high  truth  and  power  in  Othello's  pas- 
sion does  not  justify  the  incompleteness  and  imper- 
fection of  the  theories  they  offer  us,  for  they  are  like 
the  spectator  who  can  judge  of  the  grief  only  by  the 
tones  of  voice  and  expression  of  features,  knowing 
nothing  of  the  conditions  of  aggravation  and  ex- 
tenuation and  being  in  no  sense  on  the  inside. 

Just  as  an  occurrence  which  excites  the  mirth 
of  strangers  may  be  no  laughing  matter  to 
us  who  are  near  of  kin  to  the  victim,  or  so 
well  acquainted  with  the  circumstances  that 
we  appreciate  fully  all  matter  of  provocation 
or  mitigation,  so  in  the  drama  we  must  be 
taken  back  of  surface  appearances  to  the  core  of 
the  actual  motives  and  inducements  and  caused  to 
feel  the  force  of  all  the  redeeming,  excusing,  or  in- 
citing influences  that  bore  upon  the  hero.  Only  so 
can  we  have  a  rational  sympathy,  experience  any 
full  or  adequate  effect  of  literary  art.  We  may  ap- 
preciate highly  the  poetry  and  beauty  of  Othello's 
lines,  and  experience  the  sweep  of  a  passion  in  the 
Moor  which  we  recognize  instinctively  as  nobly 
tragic  and  true,  but  we  remain  nevertheless  outside 
the  limits  of  an  illumined  or  adequate  appreciation 
until  we  know  how  and  why  the  marriage  is  a  thing 
of  pathos  and  beauty  void  of  offense ;  how  and  why 
the  weak  doubts  and  fears  of  the  blackamoor  hus- 
band spring  from  a  piteous  deception,  not  from  a 
jealousy  inevitably  mean  and  a  credulity  almost  in- 
sane, as  would  be  the  case  if  he  were  an  accepted 
husband  of  either  color,  but  especially  so  if  black 
and  was  yet  put  on  a  plane  of  racial  and  connubial 


58  THE   OTHELLO, 

equality  with  Desdemona.  Immense  confidence 
and  trust  would  he  owe  her  then.  Quick  suspicion 
of  a  woman  showing  such  devotion  would  be 
dastardly. 

Blind  to  these  great  truths  of  the  tragedy,  it  is 
vain  for  Macaulay  to  pronounce  this  work  the 
greatest  in  the  world,  when  thousands  of  cultivated 
people  turn  shuddering  away  from  the  mesalliance 
of  black  and  white.  They  have  a  right  to  ask  for 
some  "  satisfying  reason  "  why  they  should  regard 
such  a  union  with  romantic  interest  and  sympathy; 
why  they  should  sorrow  to  have  it  assailed  by  lago ; 
why  Othello's  doubts  of  Desdemona,  utterly  wrong 
and  without  a  scintilla  of  supporting  truth, 
should  nevertheless  seem  pitiable  and  sorrowful, 
not  weakly  and  despicably  credulous.  The  play  can 
never  be  understood  as  a  work  of  art  until  these 
things  are  placed  in  a  thoroughly  enlightened  sym- 
pathy, and  the  Moor  stands  out  in  the  light  of 
Elizabethan  marital  custom  fastened  on  the  bride- 
bed  as,  even  then  and  there,  the  victim  of  a  jealousy 
not  animal,  but  moral  and  spiritual  solely. 

Failing  to  understand  that  Othello  took  Desde- 
mona to  the  protection  and  sanctity  of  wifehood, 
but  never  to  company  with  her,  the  critics  have  had 
sorry  work  in  applying  the  canons  of  criticism  to 
this  wonderful  play.  Some  have  struggled  to 
whiten  Othello  in  order  to  redeem  Desdemona; 
others,  ignoring  her,  keep  him  deeply  black  that 
some  excuse  for  his  quick  doubts  and  rage  may  be 
found  in  the  wearing  and  uneasy  consciousness  of 
inferiority  of  race;  while  others,  despairing  of  com- 


PALLIATION  FOR    THE  MARRIAGE.  59 

mon  methods,  strike  for  the  stars,  and  strive  to  ex- 
tort from  the  drama  an  abstract  moral  and  meaning 
quite  above  and  apart  from  the  crude  and  unsatis- 
factory dramatic  one  they  find  in  the  actual  fate  of 
the  characters.  Thus  Dowden  in  effect  de-drama-, 
tizes  the  piece  in  the  effort  to  reach  a  consolatory 
abstract  lesson,  when  the  actual  experience  and 
fate  of  the  leading  characters  are  so  tragic  and  un- 
relieved. 

While  the  theories  put  upon  the  "  Othello  "  by 
modern  critics  are  varied  and  contradictory,  they 
are  one  and  all  open  to  the  objection  of  leaving  the 
piece  without  the  explanation  of  an  adequate  cen- 
tral principle.  (K  high  purpose  or  supposed  duty, 
aimed  at  by  the  leading  characters,  but  baffled  and 
thwarted  by  fate  or  villainy,  is  the  essence  of 
tragedy;  but  where  is  it  in  this  play  as  commonly 
interpreted?  What  is  the  lofty  yet  piteous  aim  of 
Othello  and  Desdemona — the  worthy  and  beauti- 
ful, if  mistaken,  endeavor — in  which  they  are  foiled 
by  lago?  Nothing,  surely,  but  the  preservation  of 
the  marriage.  The  whole  conflict  is  over  that; 
lago  seeking  to  break  it  down,  Othello  to  preserve 
it.  But  surely  there  is  nothing  on  the  surface  or 
exterior  of  a  marriage  of  amalgamation  which  can 
be  thought  fit  for  the  approving  use  of  tragic  art. 
Taken  by  itself,  and  without  the  support  of  some 
peculiar  complication,  there  is  nothing  in  the  jeal- 
ousy of  a  black  man  over  z  white  wife,  in  a  marriage 
of  morbid  attraction,  to  excite  compassion.  Dis- 
gust and  repulsion  are  the  feelings  naturally 
aroused;  and  a  black  man's  rage  and  grief  in  such  a 


6o  THE   OTHELLO. 

situation  would  be  ill  suited  to  arouse  sympathy  in 
observers  of  either  race.  The  case  is  one  where 
there  is  a  natural  lack  even  of  the  first  shallow  or 
surface  feeling  of  sympathy  and  interest  which  mere 
outward  symbols  of  woe  usually  evoke.  The  situa- 
tion is  one  where  compassion  cannot  be  awakened 
unless  we  can  be  taken  into  some  deep  truth  differ- 
ing strongly  from  outward  appearances,  and  then 
be  gradually  worked  upon  in  a  way  to  arouse  pity 
where  ordinarily  we  should  have  none.  ) 

If  in  all  tragedies  an  explanation  of  the  inner  cir- 
cumstances and  motives  of  the  hero  is  necessary  to 
full  and  complete  sympathy,  such  elucidation  is 
doubly  so  here — indispensable  to  any  degree  of  fel- 
low-feeling whatever.  Something  must  be  done  to 
remove  the  marriage  of  black  and  white  from  the 
hideousness  of  amalgamation  into  a  light  where  the 
rays  and  hues  of  extenuating  and  pity-arousing  cir- 
cumstances shall  rest  upon  and  enfold  it.  Unless 
that  is  done  by  Shakespeare  in  the  manner  sug- 
gested, and  in  a  way  that  renders  this  piece  a 
miracle  of  dramatic  genius,  we  shall  have  to  con- 
cede that  the  poet,  after  choosing  a  degrading  and 
unworthy  subject,  has  sought  to  place  his  blunder 
in  the  most  conspicuous  and  offensive  light,  empha- 
sizing the  fact  of  unnatural  relations,  and  in  a 
wrong,  insulting  manner  asking  us  to  consider  an 
abhorrent  marriage  the  subject  of  cruel  and  wicked 
attack,  and  a  fit  thing  for  our  sorrow  and  our  tears. 
We  should  be  asked  to  weep  and  sorrow  for  the 
black  man  grandly  struggling  to  maintain  his  mar- 
riage with  a  white  wife;  to  execrate  the  villain  who 


PALLIATION  FOR    THE  MARRIAGE.  6 1 

tries  to  destroy  this  great  and  precious  felicity. 
Can  morbid  sexual  affinity  be  made  sweet  and 
tender  in  this  way?  If,  as  Professor  Wilson  said, 
our  senses  revolt  with  offense  and  loathing  at  the 
thought  of  fondling  between  black  and  white  in  real 
life,  how  are  we  to  feel  sympathy  for  the  marriage 
of  Othello  and  Desdemona  and  hope  for  its  preser- 
vation from  lago's  wiles  when  left  to  suppose  it 
was  an  actual  one  of  sex?  If  so,  how  are  we  to  an- 
swer the  fleer  of  Punch  at  the  play  as  one  unfit  for 
representation  in  our  century? 

The  time  must  come  when  it  will  be  a  matter  of 
wonder  that  Shakespearean  scholars  and  readers 
could  ever  have  been  so  blind  as  to  think  the  poet 
left  the  relation  of  Othello  and  Desdemona  as  even 
impliedly  one  of  unnatural  desires.  Every  con- 
sideration of  art  and  even  of  decency  requires 
him  to  denote  the  opposite  clearly,  positively. 
The  mere  fact  of  rendering  a  mesalliance  of  race  and 
color  valid  in  law  cannot  redeem  or  justify  it  as  a 
subject  for  tragic  poetry  where  the  feelings  are  to 
be  enlisted  and  sympathy  provoked.  Shakespeare 
could  not  possibly  be  guilty  of  a  blunder  so  mon- 
strous as  the  critics  and  commentators  have  calmly 
fastened  upon  him;  although  not  without  sicken- 
ing and  disgusting  numberless  readers  who,  with  all 
reverence  for  the  poet,  cannot  believe  even  his 
genius  capable  of  justifying  and  beautifying  amal- 
gamation of  black  and  white.  The  theory  of  a  con- 
summated marriage,  as  accepted  by  the  critics  and 
commentators  of  every  class  and  without  exception, 
brings  us  to  a  reductio  ad  absurdum  which  leaves  the 


62  THE  OTHELLO. 

drama  without  a  central  principle  or  a  plot  capa- 
ble of  arousing  even  instinctive  sympathy,  taking 
everything  away  save  the  indestructible  poetry  of 
the  lines;  while  the  true  theory  of  Shakespeare, 
which  I  now  seek  to  bring  back  by  a  restorative 
study,  leads  us  into  a  deeper  truth,  removes  all 
grossness  like  a  stain  that  is  gone,  and  transforms 
the  marriage  into  one  that  shall  touch  us  with  pity 
and  anger  when  we  see  it  cruelly  assailed  by  lago; 
which  shall  command  our  compassion  and  our 
tears  when  we  see  the  great-souled  barbarian  strug- 
gling in  its  defense. 

Only  so  can  the  "  Othello  "  be  esteemed  a  work 
of  dramatic  art.  There  is  but  one  answer  to  the 
question  which  has  puzzled  many  as  to  why  tragedy 
pleases;  why  there  should  be  fascination  and  inter- 
est in  occurrences  which  are  painful  and  repellent 
in  real  life.  The  action  of  the  play  transforms 
them.  As  Dr.  Johnson  says,  we  do  not  think  the 
woe  an  actual  one  before  us,  but  are  caused  to  real- 
ize it  as  a  possible  one  to  ourselves,  just  as  the 
mother  weeps  when  she  thinks  her  happy,  health- 
ful babe  may  be  taken  from  her.  The  art  of  tragedy 
is  to  convert  such  painful  things  as  murder,  treason, 
marital  wrong,  by  surrounding  them  with  peculiar 
circumstances  of  palliation  or  excuse.  As  we  are 
taken  into  the  secret  and  feel  the  provocation  or 
temptation  which  the  hero  suffers  and  are  touched 
by  fellow-feeling,  perceiving,  it  may  be,  a  generous 
impulse  abused  and  taken  advantage  of,  even  in  a 
way  we  have  suffered  and  can  never  forget,  minor 
though  the  circumstance  may  have  been  with  us, 


PALLIATION  FOR    THE  MARRIAGE.  63 

true  sympathy  is  stirred;  and  we  sorrow  with 
deepening*  woe  to  see  an  error  which  is  of 
the  head,  not  heart,  and  really  noble,  outra- 
geously perverted,  and  ex^aggerated  to  the  injury 
of  an  honest  man.  Finally  the  wrong  appears 
as  one  which  we  ourselves  might  have  thrust 
upon  us  by  a  malicious  enemy  or  a  sad  fate  per- 
verting worthy  impulses  and  cruelly^  magnifying 
mistakes  that  lean  to  virtue's  side.  ^  Sympathetic 
interest  and  even  indignation  come  over  us 
gradually  as  we  see  the  essentially  repellent  ac- 
tion or  situation  overspread  by  extenuating  circum- 
stances, until  at  last  it  becomes  one  into  which  we 
ourselves  must  feel  we  might  have  been  led  had  we 
been  in  the  hero's  place. 

Macbeth's  crimes  are  appalling,  but  sympathy 
will  come  for  the  brave  and  gallant  soldier  over- 
borne by  besetting  ambition  and  the  false  counsels 
of  a  loved  wife — it  might  be  so  with  us.  Hamlet's 
indecision  is  weak,  but  how  would  it  be  with  us  if 
we  met  a  soul  from  the  other  world  with  terrible 
revelations,  yet  sometimes  doubted  whether  the 
ghost  be  an  honest  one  or  no — a  loved  father's  spirit 
or  a  goblin  damned?  Armed  with  power  and  do- 
minion,— blessed  with  vast  wealth  or  success, — we 
might  possibly  grow  arrogant  and  full  of  the  pride 
of  life, — sipping  the  pleasure,  neglecting  the  duty, 
— and  like  Lear  provoke  a  fate  which  should  bring 
us  so  low  that  we  could  cling  with  agonizing  des- 
peration to  anything  left  of  true  love.  Like  Brutus. 
we  might  possibly  be  led  to  think  that  duty  to  coun- 
try and  patriotism  required  us  to  be  false  to  friend- 


H  THE  OTHELLO. 

ship.  But  perhaps  nowhere  in  dramatic  art  can  we 
find  palliation  and  extenuation  higher  wrought  than 
when  woman's  greatest  crime  appears  almost  a  vir- 
tue in  the  light  of  amazing  devotion,  unselfishness, 
and  sacrifice.  The  circumstances  which  extenuate 
a  woman's  impurity  until  it  seems  naught  but  un- 
selfish devotion  and  sacrifice  wring  the  heart  with 
pity,  as  with  "poor  Columbine,  forlorn  and  betrayed 
and  dying  out  in  the  cold  at  midnight, — sinking 
down  to  hell  perhaps, — making  her  last  frantic  ap- 
peal." As  commonly  interpreted,  w^here  shall  we 
find  in  the  '*  Othello  "  the  fellow-feeling  ''  too  quick 
and  elusive  to  be  taken  count  of,  but  to  be  felt  with, 
oh,  what  poignant  sympathy"?  But  in  the  light 
of  the  unconsummated  marriage  where  shall  we  find 
a  tale  of  poetry  or  drama  that  has  it  stronger?  And 
if  we  sympathize  with  Macbeth,  Hamlet,  Lear, 
Brutus,  and  with  Columbine,  shall  we  not,  when 
we  comprehend  Othello's  surpassingly  noble  renun- 
ciation, have  for  him  a  feeling  profounder  yet? 
Without  it,  how  any  true  tragedy?    } 

Whenever  we  are  to  have  the  effect  of  poetic 
tragedy  we  must  be  taken  into  a  secret  and  caused 
to  see  and  feel  the  circumstances  of  extenuation  and 
palliation  which  light  up  the  "  tragic  fault "  of  the 
hero;  and  as  this  need  is  especially  great  in  this 
play,  where  the  difficulty  of  enlisting  sympathy  over 
the  marriage  is  far  beyond  common,  the  attempt  to 
deal  with  the  plot  without  perceiving  or  imagining 
any  such  incubation  or  germination  of  pity  for  the 
black-white  marriage  has  involved  the  construction, 
necessarily  and  inevitably,  in  a  discord  and  perplex- 


PALLIATION  FOR    THE  MARRIAGE.  65 

ity  seemingly  hopeless.  It  could  not  be  otherwise. 
If  there  exists  a  tragedy  where  listeners  need  no 
process  of  education  to  bring  them  into  touch  and 
sympathy  with  the  hero,  it  is  certainly  not  the 
"  Othello."  Hamlet  might  sooner  be  played  with 
Hamlet  left  out,  than  to  have  a  Moor  so  little 
known  to  us  that  we  see  no  glory  of  exceptional 
purpose  in  the  marriage  and  cannot  extenuate  his 
fault  in  taking  Desdemona  in  forbidden  wedlock. 
(An  unconsummate  marriage  is  indispensably  nec- 
essary to  this  tragedy,  but  in  Shakespeare's  art  it 
had  to  be  indicated  lightly  by  a  method  of  his  day; 
partly  left  to  imagination;  not  demonstrated  with 
rude,  inartistic  force;  and  hence  there  is  much  rea- 
son why  latter-day  critics,  one  and  all,  have  failed 
to  grasp  the  half-veiled  justification,  and  so  failing 
have  been  utterly  unable  to  bring  the  play  into  any 
respectable  or  consistent  theory.^  It  is  almost  pa- 
thetic that  in  the  list  of  such  failures  we  must 
include  Edwin  Booth,  the  actor  whose  fine  sympa- 
thies taught  him  so  truly  the  character  of  Othello 
that  he  departed  from  stage  tradition  in  refusing  to 
kiss  Desdemona  awake  or  in  life,  giving  as  a  rea- 
son that  "  there  is  nothing  of  the  animal  in  this 
noble  savage";  and  Furness,  the  luminous  editor 
who  is  so  deeply  imbued  with  the  fragrance  and 
poetry  of  the  play  that  he  declares  the  love  of  the 
pair  ideal  and  devoid  of  passion's  alloy,  and  yet 
could  not  get  so  far  away  from  the  idea  of  relations 
of  sex  but  that  he  finds  it  comforting  to  have 
Othello  whitened  into  mere  tawniness.  Coming  sa 
close  to  the  truth.  Booth  and  Furness  nevertheless, 


66  THE   OTHELLO. 

by  the  silence  which  gives  consent,  pass  the  scene 
of  the  nuptial  celebration  as  denoting  a  consumma- 
tion, and  the  summons  of  Othello  later  in  the  night, 
as  Boas  says,  "  from  his  marriage  bed."  They 
strive  to  think  of  the  marriage  as  if  between  whites 
where  a  connubium  might  coexist  with  the  highest 
ideal  affection;  but  if  that  were  indeed  true  there 
could  be  no  reason  for  Booth's  fine  instinctive  act 
of  reserve  and  chasteness  in  refusing  to  kiss  Des- 
demona,  and  Furness  could  have  no  occasion  for 
comfort  in  the  sight  of  Shakespeare's  black  Othello 
whitened  into  a  quadroon.  Lamentable  that  pecu- 
liarly enlightened  Shakespeareans,  grasping  so 
much  of  the  truth,  should  yet  miss  the  entirety — 
that  Booth  could  not  know  his  finely  correct  act  of 
chaste  aloofness  had  a  grander  and  truer  support 
than  any  failure  of  animal  appetite  in  Othello — 
that  Furness  should  not  have  had  the  full  courage 
of  his  convictions  so  that  he  could  demand  ever  and 
always  a  thoroughly  black  Othello  with  no  toler- 
ance for  or  comfort  in  a  whitened  Moor. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  MAZE  OF  THE  CRITICS. 

The  "  Othello "  has  been  the  subject  of  pro- 
longed, laborious  study;  the  comments  upon  it  con- 
stitute a  library,  and  yet  the  editors  and  critics  only 
elucidate  minor  points,  and  do  not  solve  the  grand 
enigma.  (The  truth  is,  while  the  verse,  dialogue, 
and  development  of  passion  make  the  '*  Othello  " 
one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world,  the  difficulty  pre- 
sented by  the  conflict  of  race  in  marriage  has  never 
been  explained  to  modern  readers  in  a  way  to  make 
the  plot  and  characterization  worthy  the  poetry!/ 
The  objections  presented  by  writers  like  Adams  and 
Archer  have  been  evaded  and  avoided,  not  met,  and 
the  chief  question  with  the  defenders  of  the  play  has 
been  as  to  the  direction  they  would  take  in  their 
efforts  to  "  tramp  out  "  of  the  corner.  Two  things 
had  to  be  done  in  the  opinion  of  writers  who,  not 
catching  the  idea  of  a  marriage  transformed  by  dem- 
onstrated chastity  and  renunciation  within  it,  could 
only  think  of  forcing  some  exterior  change  upon  it. 
The  two  steps  in  this  effort  were:  (i)  to  rescue  the 
fair  and  delicate  Desdemona  from  the  stain  of 
marrying  a  man  of  alien  African  blood  and  color; 
(2)  to  save  the  noble  Moor  or  negro  hero  from  the 
dastardly  act  of  turning  against  a  devoted  wife  at 
the  first  breath  of  suspicion  from  a  source  itself 


68  V   »       THE   OTHELLO.  , 

most  highly  suspicious.  The  zeal  with  which  these 
ends  have  been  sought,  and  the  ingenuity  mani 
fcsted  in  the  effort,  constitute  one  of  the  most  in- 
teresting chapters  in  the  history  of  Shakespearean 
Hterature;  but,  while  it  must  be  conceded  that  the 
respective  propositions  have  been  buttressed  with 
a  formidable  show  of  learning  and  logic,  no  writer 
has  succeeded  in  bringing  the  two  together  in  har- 
mony. 

Desdemona  has  been  rescued  at  the  cost  of 
abandoning  Othello,  and  vice  versa,  but  a 
slight  consideration  will  show  that  it  is  neces- 
sary to  preserve  both  in  order  to  have  a 
tragedy  characteristic  of  Shakespeare,  or  indeed 
any  dramatist  who  respects  the  first  principle 
of  his  art.  It  boots  nothing  to  attempt  the 
rescue  of  Desdemona's  delicacy  by  toning  her 
husband  down  into  a  "  tawny  Moor  "  and  proceed- 
ing to  construe  away  such  epithets  as  *'  thick  lips  " 
and  "  sooty  bosom  "  until  the  blackamoor  is  made 
up,  or  made  over,  into  a  fit  marital  companion  for 
the  Venetian  with  that  whiter  skin  of  hers  than 
snow  or  monumental  alabaster;  for  such  a  result 
can  be  accomplished  only  by  taking  all  the  wonder 
and  marvel  away  from  her  love,  leaving  her  affec- 
tion for  Othello  as  nothing  extraordinary,  and  de- 
priving us  of  any  reasonable  explanation  of  Bra- 
bantio's  furious  opposition  to  the  match,  his  death 
of  a  broken  heart,  and  of  the  appalling  suddenness 
of  the  M'oor's  plunge  into  jealousy.  ^It  is  imma- 
terial whether  Shakespeare  ever  saw  a  real  negro 
or  whether  he  understood  the  dlHerence  between 


THE  MAZE   OF    THE   CRITICS.  69 

an  Ethiop  and  a  Moor,  for  the  fact  remains  that  the 
whole  tragedy  and  agony  of  the  piece  spring  and 
must  spring  from  an  extreme,  violent  conflict  of 
race.  The  two  are  made  supremely  fitted  for  each 
other  in  character  and  soul  to  emphasize  the  eternal 
tragedy  of  their  unfitness  in  race  and  blood.  If 
there  were  no  unusual  antagonism  of  color  between 
the  pair,  no  great  difference  of  race  temporarily  and 
artificially  glossed  over  by  the  idealism  of  love,  the 
whole  plot  would  be  a  mystery,  there  would  be  no 
occasion  for  the  tumult  and  agony  over  the  mar- 
riage, and  the  two  ought  to  have  lived  happily  ever 
after  the  wedding  instead  of  encountering  an  un- 
checked stream  of  disaster."^ 

If  there  were  no  other  objections  to  the  whitening 
of  Othello  into  some  closer  approach  to  Desde- 
mona,  ^the  exploit  is  open  to  the  fatal  one  of 
leaving  no  excuse  or  extenuation  for  the  Moor's 
<(lack  of  marital  confidence.  Being  so  well  suited  to 
Desdemona  in  soul  and  character,  he  needed  only 
some  reasonable  degree  of  fitness  in  race  and  blood 
to  make  an  ideal  union  and  cause  him  to  feel  secure 
in  a  confidence  so  strong  that  nothing  but  an  earth- 
quake could  shake  it.  Although  the  critics  have 
not  seen  it^  the  contrary  is  true  of  the  Moor  from 
the  first.  [  Othello's  efforts  to  plume  himself  up  as 
worthy  of  Desdemona  are  not  in  the  least  character- 
istic of  his  modest  nature;  they  attest  an  uneasy 
striving  for  reassurance,  just  as  does  his  extravagant 
burst  of  joy  at  finding  Desdemona  unchanged  after 
an  absence  and  separation  of  perhaps  two  weeks. 
We  discern  in  Othello  from  the  first,  beneath  his 


7©  THE   OTHELLO. 

outward  calm,  an  uneasy,  restless  feeling  such  as 
would  be  the  early  product  of  unequal  marriage, 
even  when  the  disparity  is  nothing  more  than 
a  considerable  one  of  years.  It  was  that  same  anx- 
ious fear,  aggravated  a  thousandfold  by  the  con- 
sciousness of  his  inferiority  of  race,  which  grew 
upon  Othello  from  the  hour  of  his  marriage  and 
made  him  so  quick  and  easy  a  victim  to  the  insinua- 
tions of  lago.  \  It  is  pitiful,  grievous,  to  see  a  noble- 
minded  man  so  abused  through  his  own  manly 
humility,  and  the  effect  becomes  highly  tragic  at 
last;  but  take  away  the  race  contrast,  or  reduce  it 
to  something  inconsiderable,  and  the  weak  trust  and 
jealousy  of  Othello  become  contempvtible  and  unfit 
for  high  dramatic  use.  ySo  it  is  that  writers  like 
Schlegel,  ignoring  the  fate  of  Desdemona  and  striv- 
ing only  to  solve  the  problem  of  the  Moor's  sudden 
turn  to  jealous  rage,  claim  he  was  not  only  black  in 
the  face,  but  a  fiery,  sensual  African,  blacker  yet 
at  heart,  and  that  his  veneering  of  civilization 
dropped  from  him  when  the  blood  of  the  harem 
stirred  in  his  veins. 

Explaining  the  action  in  Schlegel's  way,  and 
giving  this  picturesque  version  of  a  jealousy 
quick  as  that  of  the  seraglio,  we  may  well 
strive  to  paint  the  Moor  black  as  night.  Thus 
Schlegel  sees  in  Othello  a  jealousy  of  "  that  sen- 
sual sort  which  in  torrid  climes  gives  birth  to  im- 
prisonment of  wives  and  other  barbarous  usages," 
and  recognizes  in  the  man  himself  "  the  wild  nature 
of  that  glowing  zone  which  generates  the  most 
furious  beasts  of  prey,  the  most  deadly  poisons," 


THE  MAZE   OF   THE   CRITICS.  71 

and  thinks  that  "  the  physical  force  of  passion  puts 
to  flight  all  his  acquired  and  accustomed  virtues 
and  gives  the  savage  within  him  the  rule  over  the 
moral  man."  Desdemona,  then,  was  a  sacrifice  to 
a  savage,  and  the  savage  himself  is  so  little  above 
barbarism  that  his  woes  can  hardly  appeal  to  our 
sympathies  with  sufficient  strength  for  tragedy, 
/in  a  true  development  of  iragic  art  as  it  has 
always  been  understood,  and  more  especially 
in  the  time  of  Shakespeare,  the  woe  must 
be  such  as  purges  the  heart  of  the  spectator 
with  pity  and  sympathy  for  the  victim.  That 
certainly  is  not  the  case  if  we  see  Desdemona 
go  to  the  sensual  savage  as  a  lamb  to  a 
tiger,  and  yet  of  her  own  choice  and  her  own 
fault.)  Coleridge,  perhaps  the  most  luminous  of 
English  critics,  was  one  of  the  first  to  try  to  wash 
the  black  from  Othello's  face,  for  it  was  in  his  view 
"  something  monstrous  to  conceive  this  beautiful 
Venetian  girl  falling  in  love  with  a  veritable  negro," 
and  "  would  argue  a  disproportionateness,  a  want 
of  balance  in  Desdemona  which  Shakespeare  does 
not  in  the  least  appear  to  have  contemplated." 
Looking  to  the  other  side  of  the  great  double  diffi- 
culty, Schlegel,  a  critic  standing  in  the  first  rank 
beside  Coleridge  himself,  thinks  the  man  of  Desde- 
mona's  choice  was  a  savage  at  bottom,  who  must 
needs  have  been  very  black  without  if  his  skin  was 
to  match  the  spirit  within,  and  his  quick,  violent 

ristrust  was  to  seem  true  to  nature. 
The  latest  modern^  cyticism  foregoes  the  effort 
to  wash  the  blackamoor  white,  and  concedes  his 


72  THE   OTHELLO. 

Utter  blackness,  not  simply  because  he  is  so  de- 
scribed throughout  the  play  by  himself,  as  well  as 
others,  but  for  the  reason  that  without  a  great  con- 
trast in  race  there  is  no  way  of  accounting  for  the 
clash  and  conflict  over  the  marriage.  The  Moor  is 
not  to  be  thought  of  as  repulsive  or  forbidding  in 
appearance,  but  stamped  and  dyed  as  of  a  race  alien 
to  fair  Desdemona.  But  does  not  this  concession  , 
sully  the  delicacy  of  Desdemona  beyond  endurance?/ 

I  have  already  given  the  answer  of  the  modern 
stage  to  that  question  made  in  response  to  the 
popular  dislike  of  black  and  white  in  marriage — a 
dislike  which  has  compelled  it  to  abandon  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  boards  direct  from  Shakespeare's 
time  and  to  present  the  Moor  as  almost  white. 
That  is  against  modern  scholarship  as  well  as  stage 
tradition,  and  it  disjoints  the  whole  plot,  but  it  has 
to  be  done  as  modern  audiences  grow  more  and 
V  more  unwilling  to  tolerate  the  picture  of  black  hus- 
\  band  and  white  wife.  The  playgoer  of  this  genera- 
tion may  not  be  satisfied  with  the  enigma  of 
Othello's  action,  and  the  failure  of  an  adequate  rea- 
son for  the  storm  and  stress  over  the  marriage,  but 
he  would  rather  let  all  that  stand  unexplained  than 
see  the  fair  Desdemona  taken  to  the  arms  of  an 
African  bridegroom. 

Many  expressions  show  how  completely  the  old 
idealism  of  the  ''  Othello  "  has  faded  from  the  mat- 
ter-of-fact vision  and  analysis  of  the  playgoers  of- the 
nineteenth  century.  There  has  come  a  time  at  last 
when  the  popular  mind  no  longer  retains  any  fla- 
vor or  color  of  the  ancient  tradition  respecting  the 


THE  MAZE   OF   THE   CRITICS.  73 

Moor  and  his  bride,  and,  failing  in  its  materialism 
and  realism  to  conceive  that  there  had  ever  been  a 
better  interpretation,  it  has  arrogated  to  itself  the 
merit  of  a  searching  modern  analysis,  laying  bare 
the  fact  of  the  blackamoor  chief  and  his  bride  being 
persons  greatly  deficient  in  refinement  and  delicacy 
and  Shakespeare's  supposed  masterpiece  a  ques- 
tionable thing. 

Thus,  John  Ouincy  Adams  says  Desdemona 
*'  violated  her  duties  to  her  father,  her  family,  her 
sex,  and  her  country,"  and  adds: 

"  Desdemona  is  not  false  to  her  husband,  but  she 
has  been  false  to  the  purity  and  delicacy  of  her  sex 
and  condition  when  she  married  him.  .  .  Upon 
the  stage  her  fondling  of  Othello  is  disgusting. 
Who  in  real  life  would  have  her  for  a  sister,  daugh- 
ter, or  wife?  " 

He  insists  that  Desdemona's  conjugal  attraction 
to  the  black  man  proves  her  not  merely  deficient  in 
delicacy,  but  a  woman  with  ''  unsettled  principles  " 
and  "  little  less  than  a  wanton,"  prompted,  not  by 
pure  love  like  Miranda  and  Juliet,  but  by  ''  unnatu- 
ral passion  not  to  be  named  with  delicacy."  He 
says  again: 

''  I  must  believe  that  in  exhibiting  a  daughter  of 
a  Venetian  nobleman  of  the  highest  rank  eloping  in 
the  dead  of  night  to  marry  a  thick-lipped,  wool- 
headed  Moor,  opening  a  train  of  consequences 
which  lead  to  her  own  destruction  by  her  husband's 
hands  and  to  that  of  her  father  by  a  broken  heart, 
he  [Shakespeare]  did  not  intend  to  present  her  as 
an  example  of  the  perfection  of  female  virtue," 


74  THE  OTHELLO. 

Adams  is  not  insensiBle  to  the  beauties  of  Des- 
demona's  character,  however,  for  he  admits  that  in 
her  relations  with  Othello  after  marriage  she  dis- 
plays "  the  most  aflfecting  sweetness  of  temper,  the 
most  perfect  artlessness,  and  the  most  endearing 
resignation."  Yet,  with  an  inconsistency  fatal  to 
such  loveliness,  he  finds  in  her  painful  and  even  im- 
moral lack  of  delicacy  and  reserve.  To  reconcile 
such  expressions  is  impossible. 

Professor  Wilson  feels  a  touch  of  the  same 
trouble,  and  has  to  exert  himself  to  find  excuse  for 
Desdemona.  "  You  could  not  bear,"  he  declares, 
"  that  an  English  Lady  Desdemona — Lady  Blanche 
Howard — should  under  any  imaginable  greatness 
marry  General  Toussaint  or  the  Duke  of  Marma- 
lado.  Your  senses  revolt  with  offense  and  loath- 
ing. But  on  the  stage  some  consciousness  that 
everything  is  not  as  literally  meant  as  it  seems 
saves  the  play." 

Charles  Lamb  took  the  opposite  way  to  recon- 
cile himself  to  Desdemona's  choice  of  a  hus- 
band. He  thought  that  in  reading  the  story 
we  gloss  over  Othello's  color,  but  on  the  stage 
when  we  see  it  with  the  bodily  eye  the  coal-black 
bridegroom  is  in  painful  contrast  to  Desdemona. 
"  I  appeal  to  everyone  who  has  seen  Othello  played 
whether  he  did  not  sink  Othello's  mind  in  his  color; 
whether  he  did  not  find  something  extremely  re- 
volting in  the  courtship  and  wedded  caresses  of 
Othello  and  Desdemona;  whether  the  actual  sight 
of  the  thing  did  not  overweigh  all  that  beautiful 
compromise   we   make   in   reading."     To   read   of 


TtfE  MAZE   OF  THE  CRITICS.  75 

Adam  and  Eve  naked  in  the  garden  was  different, 
he  thought,  from  seeing  them  even  in  picture. 
"  What  we  see  upon  the  stage  is  body  and  bodily 
actions;  what  we  are  conscious  of  in  reading  is 
almost  exclusively  the  mind  and  its  movements." 

Feminine  students  are  as  much  in  conflict  as  the 
other  sex  over  Desdemona  and  her  lover.  Mary 
Preston  ("  Studies  in  Shakespeare  ")  is  compelled 
to  save  her  heroine,  not  by  taking  a  few  shades 
from  the  blackamoor's  color,  but  by  making  him 
entirely  white.  "  We  may  regard  the  daub  of 
black  upon  Othello's  portrait  as  an  ebullition  of 
fancy,  a  freak  of  imagination — the  visionary  con- 
ception of  an  ideal  figure — one  of  the  few  erroneous 
strokes  of  the  great  master's  brush,  the  single  blem- 
ish on  a  faultless  work.  Othello  was  a  white  man." 
This  is  revising  Shakespeare  with  a  vengeance.  As 
Lewes  says:  "Othello  is  black — the  very  tragedy 
lies  there ;  the  whole  force  of  the  contrast,  the  whole 
pathos  and  extenuation  of  his  doubts  of  Desdemona 
depend  on  this  blackness."  If  Othello  was  white 
there  could  be  no  necessity  for  the  tragic  tale,  no 
excuse  for  it,  as  he  could  then  have  married  Des- 
demona with  the  hearty  approval  of  her  father  and 
the  joy  of  everybody  else  that  the  bride  had  done 
so  well.  The  pair  must  then  certainly  have  lived 
happily  ever  after,  but  they  would  give  us  no 
tragedy:  Othello  must  be  black  for  that.  Mrs. 
Jameson  accepts  Othello  with  all  his  blackness, 
and  yet  finds  Desdemona  "  an  offering  without 
blemish,  all  harmony,  all  grace,  all  purity,  all  ten- 
derness, all  truth."     Rymer,  on  the  other  hand, 


7^  THE   OTHELLO. 

says  her  conduct  is  unworthy  a  country  chamber- 
maid. 

Expres'siiig  the  views  reached  by  instinctive  ap- 
preciation by  the  great  majority  .9!  Shakespeare's 
readers  rather  than  by  any  logical  iinalysis,  Hudson 
I  finds  exquisite  refinement  in  Desdemona  and  the 
highest  nobility  in  a  thoroughly  black,  and  even 
outwardly  forbidding,  Othello,  but  keeps  their 
marital  relations  far  removed,  that  distance  may 
lend  enchantment  to  the  view.^  Hence  he  is  able  to 
say:  '*  Our  heroic  warrior's  dark,  rough  exterior  is 
found  to  inclose  a  heart  strong  as  a  giant's  yet  soft 
and  sweet  as  infancy."  He  thinks  it  beautiful  that 
Desdemona  has  the  eye  and  the  heart  to  recognize 
the  proper  complement  of  herself  beneath  such  "  an 
unprepossessing  appearance  "  as  Othello  presented, 
and  finds  it  difficult  to  say  "  whether  his  nobleness 
be  more  awful  to  her  or  her  gentleness  more  awful 
to  him."  Thus,  we  are  to  understand,  miscegena- 
tion may  become  a  thing  of  beauty  provided  the 
man  and  woman  are  suited  in  mind  and  heart. 
\There  is  certainly  room  to  doubt  whether 
Shakespeare  intended  the  woman  whom  he  sought 
to  make  the  most  beautifully  refined  and  delicate, 
to  find  her  "'  proper  complement "  in  a  black  man 
of  antagonistic  race  and  unprepossessing  appear- 
ance, with  whom  the  natural  end  of  marriage  could 
not  be  attained  without  offense  to  nature  and  so- 
ciety, but  if  so, — if  the  William  Shakespeare  who 
had  so  keen  a  sense  of  family  integrity  that  he 
judged  wedlock  always  by  its  fitness  for  natural 
purpose,  and  liad  the  great  horror  of  mongrel  oflf- 


THE   MAZE   OF    THE   CRITICS  77 

Spring  he  has  displayed  elsewhere,  really  in- 
tended this — we  may  be  sure  he  would  put  no 
further  burden  upon  our  distressed  imaginations, 
but  would  feel  bound  to  assist  us  in  every  way.  In 
that  event  he  would  have  thrown  the  intimacies  of 
wedlock  in  a  distant  haze  to  favor  such  idealism  as 
Hudson  proposes,  and  not  have  made  it  impossible 
by  permitting  lago  to  sicken  and  disgust  us  with 
his  vile  images  of  physical  culmination,  and  then 
allow  Othello  to  take  us  with  him  to  the  door  of 
the  nuptial  chamber.  Forcing  us  to  face  the  great 
difficulty,  Shakespeare  has  guarded  against  the 
evasive  idealism  of  Hudson  so  carefully  that  it 
cannot  be  indulged  in  without  first  expurgating  the 
passages  that  stand  in  the  way  and  then  forgetting 
them./ Despite  all  this,  however,  readers  who  trust 
to  their  feelings  refuse  to  argue  the  question  of  the 
delicacy  of  Desdemona  or  make  pleas  of  avoidance, 
but  simply  cry  **  fudge!  "  and  reiterate  the  convic- 
tion that  she  was  one — 


"  Whose  life  was,  like  the  violet,  sweet, 
As  climbing  jasmine  pure." 


Two  accomplished  writers  of  recent  activity  sum 
up  in  their  respective  opinions  all  that  has  gone  be- 
fore. Lewes,  usually  acute  and  luminous,  strangely 
passes  the  marriage  with  the  old  assumptions  as  if 
bride  and  groom  were  of  the  same  race  and  tlie 
union  could  properly  introduce  Moorish  half-caste 
or  mulatto  children  to  the  aristocratic  Venetian 
society  where  Desdemona  belonged;  but  it  is  clear 


7 8  THE   OTHELLO. 

he  does  not  really  look  so  far,  only  glosses  it  over 
as  a  matter  of  course  that  the  ordinary  re- 
lations are  to  be  supposed,  and  supposed  with- 
out offense.  Following  Hudson  in  this  way, 
he  occupies  himself  exclusively  with  the  dia- 
logue and  verse,  pointing  out  the  transcend- 
ent merits  there  displayed  and  concluding  that  the 
piece  is  entitled  to  rank  as  "  the  supreme  master- 
piece of  dramatic  art."  Archer  manifests  equal  ap- 
preciation of  the  dialogue  and  poetry,  and,  while 
passing  the  marital  relations  with  the  same  assump- 
tions, is  by  no  means  inclined  to  consider  the  piece 
void  of  offense,  but  proceeds  to  a  close  analysis  of 
the  action  which  he  thinks  demonstrates  the  plot  to 
be  one  of  crude  naturalism  or  pessimism,  and  the 
development  without  the  artistic  elevation  necessary 
in  the  higher  grades  of  literature.  Despite  all  the 
surpassing  beauty  and  power  of  the  poetry,  he  is 
constrained  to  think  Punch  right  in  declaring  the 
piece  unfit  for  an  audience  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. Archer  remarks  a  strange  and  unaccount- 
able looseness  of  construction  growing  out  of  the 
dramatic  time,  and  he  advances  this  difficulty  as 
something  new,  having  overlooked  or  forgotten  the 
elaborate  consideration  and  discussion  it  received 
from  Professor  Wilson  long  before.  Archer  is 
entirely  original  in  the  conclusion  he  draws  from 
the  condensed  time  and  close  sequence  of  the 
scenes,  and  he  shows  clearly  that,  as  the  play  has 
been  taken,  Desdemona's  guilt  was  a  physical  im- 
possibility, and  that  truth  rnust  have  been  so  well 
known  to  Othello  that  his  suspicion  was  without 


THE   MAZE    OF   THE   CRITICS.  79 

the  slightest  palHation  or  excuse,  unless  it  is  to 
be  found  in  the  ravings  of  an  insane  mind. 

It  is  as  difficult,  under  previous  views  of  the 
plot,  to  question  Archer's  analysis  of  the  ac- 
tion as  to  dispute  the  tribute  both  he  and 
Lewes  pay  to  the  dialogue  and  the  poetry. 
Archer,  indeed,  only  takes  up  the  ordinary  view  of 
the  play  and  pushes  it  to  a  final  analysis,  and  it 
would  seem  impossible  to  refute  his  conclusion  ex- 
cept by  some  theory  of  the  piece  new  from  the  be- 
ginning. 

Archer  describes  sympathetically  the  circum- 
stances under  which  Punch  affirmed  that  "  Shakes- 
peare could  not  write  a  play  for  a  nineteenth-cen- 
tury audience."  The  "  Othello "  provoked  the 
gibe,  and  it  was  aimed  not  so  much  at  the  moral 
doctrine  of  the  play,  or  lack  of  it,  as  at  the  crude  pes- 
simism which  in  the  current  interpretation  does  in- 
deed seem  to  unfit  the  piece  for  a  place  among  works 
of  literary  art.  Archer  thinks  Punch  spoke  under 
circumstances  of  grave  provocation.  *'  Othello  had 
been  wildly  overdone  during  the  season.  Every 
second  week  brought  us  a  new  Moor.  He  had 
commenced  his  career  at  Sadler's  Wells,  continued 
it  at  the  Princess*,  and  was  now  reigning  supreme 
at  the  Lyceum."  The  editor  of  Punch  had  seen 
audience  after  audience  listening  to  the  play  with 
the  respect  which  the  name  of  Shakespeare  pro- 
cured for  it,  and  he  wished  to  arouse  those  audi- 
ences to  an  analysis  of  the  drama  itself.  Such  an 
analysis,  Archer  thinks,  proves  the  play  inferior  to 
the  other  great  tragedies,  and  destitute  of  any  ar- 


8o  THE   OTHELLO. 

tistic  meaning  worthy  a  high  form  of  literature. 
He  follows  the  piece  closely  through  scene  after 
scene  to  show  the  guilt  of  Cassio  and  Desdemona 
was  a  physical  impossibility;  that  each  could  prove 
an  alibi,  and  that  the  fact  of  criminality  being 
out  of  the  question  was  so  well  known  to  Othello 
that  he  could  have  been  made  the  chief  witness  for 
the  defense.  This  because  ''  Cassio  can  by  no  pos- 
sibility have  been  alone  with  Desdemona  one  in- 
stant since  the  marriage  until  that  morning  inter- 
view "  on  the  heels  of  which  Othello's  suspicions 
started. 

The  time  thread  and  sequence  of  the  scenes, 
closely  followed,  proves  that  "  Othello  himself 
has  been  continually  in  Desdemona's  company" 
from  the  time  of  the  marriage  to  the  hour  wherein 
he  begins  to  suspect  her.  Since  guilt  before  the 
wedding  is  out  of  the  question  and  the  overpowering 
agony  of  Othello  lies  in  having  forced  upon  him  the 
conviction  of  the  wife  who  fondly  loved  him  being 
turned  away  from  him  after  marriage.  Archer  in- 
sists that  the  close-knit  scenes  which  keep  Desde- 
mona so  constantly  with  the  Moor  as  to  forestall 
any  chance  for  wrong  make  the  jealousy  irrational 
and  entitled  to  no  sympathy,  unless  insane  credulity 
is  a  fit  thing  for  poetic  tragedy.  On  other  grounds 
he  finds  Othello's  credulity  monstrous,  not  pathetic. 
I  must  not  be  understood  as  assenting  for  one  mo- 
ment to  Archer's  analysis  as  complete  and  final, 
although  it  seems  to  me  correct  as  far  as  it  goes, 
and  beyond  refutation  on  any  theory  of  the  mar- 
riage heretofore  advanced. 


THE  MAZE   OF    THE   CRITICS.  8l 

Widely  dififerent  from  Archer,  but  fully  as  de- 
structive to  the  character  of  Othello,  is  the  Ameri- 
can critic,  Snider,  who  strives  to  give  probability  to 
the  action  at  the  cost  of  any  required  surrender  of 
beauty,  grandeur,  or  merit  in  the  personages. 
Not  meeting  the  insuperable  difficulty  of  a  lack 
of  opportunity  for  guilt,  which  had  not  been  sug- 
gested when  he  wrote,  Snider  solves  the  prob- 
lem of  Othello's  sudden  change  to  jealousy  by  tak- 
ing lago's  suspicion  of  the  Moor  to  be  true.  He 
believes  Othello  has  been  guilty  with  Emilia, 
and  "  he  is  therefore  aware  that  the  infidelity  of 
wives  is  a  fact";  that  "here  lies  the  germ  of 
his  belief  in  the  faithlessness  of  Desdemona." 
Guilty  himself,  he  is  unnaturally  quick  to  suspect 
guilt  in  his  wife,  and  Snider  declares  it  impossible 
that  an  innocent  and  honest  man  could  have  been 
so  easily  led  astray. 

There  are  several  reasons  why  Snider's  view 
cannot  be  accepted.  First  is  the  fact  of  no 
word  being  spoken  between  Othello  and  Emilia 
when  alone  together  which  has  the  slightest  sug- 
gestion of  guilty  relations  past  or  present;  nor  does 
anyone  in  the  drama  breathe  a  suspicion  of  such  a 
thing  save  lago,  v/ho  is  quick  to  believe  guilt  in 
everybody,  and  yet  in  this  instance  could  not  con- 
jure up  anything  stronger  against  Othello  than  his 
own  unsupported  ''  mere  suspicion,"  as  he  himself 
described  it.  The  foundation  of  Snider's  theory — 
the  idea  that  Othello's  own  guilty  conscience  is 
what  makes  him  have  so  little  confidence  in  the  vir- 
tue of  woman — is  a  doctrine  specially  refuted  in  this 


82  THE   OTHELLO. 

same  play  in  tiie  person  and  character  of  Cassio,  a 
pronounced  gallant  only  too  familiar  with  feminine 
degradation  through  his  intimacy  with  Bianca  and 
the  general  course  of  his  illicit  life,  but  who  is  never- 
theless a  firm  believer  in  the  reality  of  female  virtue. 
His  reverence  for  Desdemona  as  a  pure  woman  is 
so  boundless  and  flawless  that  Coleridge  could  well 
speak  of  it  as  a  "  religious  love."  Cassio's  rever- 
ence for  purity  seems  if  anj^hing  heightened  and 
strengthened  by  what  he  had  known  of  the  oppo- 
site. Even  lago  tells  us  of  base  men  in  love  hav- 
ing a  nobility  in  their  natures  more  than  is  native 
to  them;  and,  with  Cassio  before  our  eyes  to  show 
the  reverential  faith  Desdemona  could  inspire  in  a 
gay  Lothario,  we  cannot  think  she  would  be  less 
successful  with  the  noble  Moor,  whose  heart  has 
been  likened  to  a  pure  and  spotless  white  mirror 
which  reflects  accurately  all  that  is  beautiful  and 
true.  Faults  he  may  have  had  in  youth,  but  his 
mature  life  was  beyond  the  reach  of  detraction  or 
suspicion,  and  it  might  well  be  his  ideals  of  woman- 
hood were  like  the  broken  joint  lago  tells  of,  which 
when  splintered  grew  stronger  than  before. 

One  broad  lesson  of  the  play  seems  to  me  the  op- 
posite of  what  Snider  asserts  in  respect  to  masculine 
knowledge  of  female  impurity  in  certain  cases 
operating  to  breed  a  general  doubt.  If  it  were  not 
so  there  are  other  considerations  which  appear  fatal 
to  this  claim.  Can  it  be  possible  Shakespeare  put 
such  noble  sentiments  in  the  mouth  of  a  man  who, 
believing  he  had  won  a  bride  of  heavenly  purity, 
would  consent  that  she  should  have  as  companion 


THE  MAZE   OF   THE   CRITICS.  83 

and  constant  attendant  a  woman  with  whom  he  had 
relations  of  crim.  con.?  It  is  impossible  to  believe 
such  baseness  of  Othello.  Snider's  theory  of 
Othello  fails  at  last  in  the  purpose  for  which  it  was 
wrought  out,  for  after  we  shall  have  gone  to  the 
length  of  imagining  the  Moor  guilty  with  the 
woman  appointed  to  attend  his  bride,  and  shall 
have  conceived  that  such  guilt  should  make 
him  basely  suspicious  of  all  virtue,  when  its 
efifect  upon  Cassio  is  to  leave  his  appreciation 
of  goodness  all  unclouded,  we  have  yet  to  face 
the  fact  of  no  opportunity  for  Desdemona's 
alleged  crime  having  existed  since  the  marriage,  ac- 
cording to  all  previous  interpretations,  Snider's  in- 
cluded, and  Othello  knows  that  to  be  true.  What 
boots  it  to  cudgel  our  brains  to  supply  him  some 
motive  or  impulse  toward  suspicion  when  our  gen- 
eral theory  of  the  action,  if  correct,  shows  Othello 
knew  positively  Cassio  had  no  opportunity  to  woo 
Desdemona,  much  less  to  enter  into  guilty  relations 
with  her?  With  the  camel  swallowed,  why  strain  at 
a  gnat?  I  Snider  has  to  stain  Othello  with  unspeak- 
able degradation  in  the  effort  to  account  for  his 
plunge  into  jealousy,  and  yet,  even  if  we  grant  the 
motive  claimed,  he  ends  with  making  the  Moor 
savagely  jealous  where  he  knew  there  was  no  op- 
portunity for  wrong.  Unless  Archer  is  right,  and 
the  plot  essentially  a  botch,  we  must  have  some 
better  theory  of  Othello's  jealousy  than  one  so 
forced  and  destructive  in  reaction.  \ 

Very    different    from    Snider's    is    the    method 
of  Dowden,  who  gets   rid  of  the  marriage  diffi- 


84  THE   OTHELLO. 

culty,  and  indeed  of  every  gross  complication 
of  earth,  by  soaring  into  the  blue  of  the 
clouds.  Dowden  is  one  of  those  commen- 
tators who,  encountering  a  discord  in  Shakes- 
peare and  finding  no  other  relief  at  hand,  do 
not  hesitate  tO'  force  explanations  as  they  would 
not  do  for  any  other  author  in  the  world,  and  solve 
problems  by  ascribing  to  Shakespeare  occult  mean- 
ings and  abstract  philosophies,  disconnected  from 
the  dramatic  action,  of  which  the  playwright  never 
dreamed.  Thus,  believing  it  necessary  this  play 
should  have  an  ethical  spirit  and  purpose,  and  being 
unable  to  discern  any  in  the  dramatic  movement 
with  the  marriage  regarded  as  somatic,  he  thinks  it 
must  be  the  lesson  is  an  abstract  one  of  conflict  be- 
tween good  and  evil  rather  than  a  mere  individual 
or  personal  struggle  between  Othello  and  lago. 
And  this  conflict  is  not  only  out  of  line  with  the  ac- 
tual human  struggle  between  Othello  and  lago,  but 
in  some  respects  irreconcilable  with  it. 

Dowden's  inconsistency  is  really  self-exposed. 
He  says  Othello  "  must  cease  to  live  the  moment 
he  ceases  to  retain  faith  in  the  purity  and  goodness 
which  were  to  him  the  most  real  things  upon  earth,'' 
or  life  must  be  thereafter  "  a  cruel  agony. 'TOthello 
passes,  indeed,  into  such  disenchantment;  he  ex- 
periences the  cruel  agony  of  destroyed  faith  for  a 
time,  but,  con'trary  to  Dowden's  theory,  does  not 
then  seek  death  and  does  not  meet  it  in  fact  until 
this  position  is  entirely  reversed.  At  the  time  of  his 
self-inflicted  death  the  storm  has  passed,  the  fear- 
ful self-deception  is  cleared  away,  and,  as  Dowden 


THE  MAZE   OF   THE   CRITICS.  85 

himself  says,  Othello  then  "  perceives  his  own 
calamitous  error,"  and  "  recognizes  Desdemona 
pure  and  loyal  as  she  was,"  and  "  goodness  is  justi- 
fied of  her  child."  The  illusion  is  at  an  end;  the 
old  ideals  shine  out  gloriously  as  before;  faith  is 
restored  in  humanity  and  in  Heaven.  1 

It  is  not,  therefore,  the  loss  of  faith  in  purity  and 
goodness  that  makes  Othello  fall  upon  his  sword, 
for  that  is  restored  to  him — made  triumphant.  ^Not 
dying  when  his  faith  in  abstract  good  was  gone, 
but  perishing  when  it  is  restored,  his  fate  is,  in  di- 
rect opposition  to  Dowden's  theory,  purely  per- 
sonal an^  individual,  and  springs  from  no  loss  of 
ideals.  \He  rushes  from  a  world  beautiful  with 
virtue  and  goodness  because  he  thinks  himself  un- 
fit to  live  in  it.^  Not  seeking  or  expecting  reunion 
with  Desdemona  in  another  world,  he  kills  himself 
because  her  heaven  can  nevermore  be  one  for  him. 
(The  demands  of  virtue  in  the  abstract  may  be  satis- 
fied, and  on  that  score  Othello  might  be  entitled  to 
live;  it  is  the  intense  personal  guilt  of  slaying  Des- 
demona which  overpowers  him — a  fate  purely  per- 
sonal in  its  cause  and  its  lesson,  just  as  Desdemona's 
also  is  a  consequence  of  her  wrong  marital  choice. 
Othello  rushes  madly  from  the  world,  not  because 
it  has  become  in  itself  dark  and  intolerable,  for  in 
truth  his  ideals  shine  again  in  a  light  relumed,  but 
under  the  pressure  of  personal  sorrow  and  anguish 
— under  the  destructive  dramatic  agony  of  knowing 
he  had  slain  Desdemona  in  her  sweetest  innocence. 
The  limit  of  sorrow  is  reached  when  the  Moor  ap- 
pears as 


S6  THE  OTHELLO. 

"  .   .   .   one  whose  subdued  eyes. 
Albeit  unused  to  the  melting  mood, 
Drop  tears,  as  fast  as  the  Arabian  trees 
Their  medicinable  gum." 

And  the  quick  poignant  anguish,  too  much  for 
mortal,  follows  when  he  stabs  himself  as  in  better 
days  he  would  strike  a  malignant  Turk  for  the 
abuse  of  a  Venetian.  The  picture  of  anguish  is  the 
more  vivid  that  it  is  set,  not  under  a  lowering  sky 
devoid  of  beauty  and  ideals,  but  under  one  in  which 
the  stars  shine  brightly  as  of  yore,  presenting  a 
"  heavenly  sight,"  but  one  from  which  devils  are 
to  whip  Othello.' 

To  dissipate  this  intense,  personal,  self-pro- 
voked, retributive  tragedy  in  a  cloud  of  con- 
flict between  abstract  good  and  abstract  evil  is 
most  erroneous.  If  the  awful  pall  which  falls 
upon  Othello  and  Desdemona  is  to  be  re- 
garded cheerfully  or  resignedly  as  the  triumph  of 
abstract  good  over  abstract  evil,  what  principle  of 
dramatic  art  can  then  excuse  Shakespeare  for  hav- 
ing so  needlessly  and  wantonly  overwhelmed  the 
two  leading  characters  with  weakness,  fault,  and 
calamity,  butchering  them  for  our  high  and  general 
casuistic  moral  satisfaction?  The  fate  of  Desde- 
mona especially  is  then  traced  to  no  appropriate 
"  tragic  fault "  properly  extenuated  to  excite  our 
pity  and  pathos  but  never  wiped  out;  her  taking  off 
becomes  an  unrelieved  butchery,  just  as  Dr.  John- 
son admitted  when  he  said  the  death  scene  was  in- 
tolerable and  Furness  confessed  when  he  wished  it 
had  never  been  written.     According  to  Dowden  she 


THE  MAZE   OF   THE   CRITICS.  87 

did  just  right;  her  career  was  one  of  moral  beauty 
throughout,  and  ended  in  an  apotheosis  of  good- 
ness, and  yet  she  was  choked  to  death  by  her  infuri- 
ated husband.  Painful  realism  this,  not  soul-mov- 
ing tragic  poetry. 

\  Far  different  is  it,  however,  when  we  see  the 
ultimate  fate  of  Desdemona  springing  from  her 
irretrievable  but  dramatically  extenuated  error 
in  entering  into  an  unnatural  marriage  and  start- 
ing the  chain  of  causes  which  leads  to  her  death. 
Her  end  is  then  most  pathetic  and  sorrowful,  but 
has  in  it  enough  of  fated  and  yet  true  justice  to 
bring  it  out  of  the  merely  horrible  into  the  region  of 
the  tragic. 

And  when  Othello  dies,  self-murdered,  antici- 
pating that  devils  will  forever  drive  him  from 
the  heavenly  sight  of  Desdemona  into  deserved  hell 
fire,  it  is  vain  to  say  his  fate  really  stands  for  a  tri- 
umph of  goodness  personified  by  him  over  evil  per- 
sonified by  lago. 

It  stands  for  the  extenuated  but  irredeemable 
error  of  the  marriage  culminating  pathetically  yet 
naturally  in  inevitable  wrong. 

Only  the  prolonged  and  distressing  failure  to  rec- 
oncile the  marriage  difficulty,  or  to  extract  some 
fit  personal  or  dramatic  lesson  from  the  plot,  could 
have  induced  a  ripe  Shakespearean  scholar  to  seek 
zealously  in  the  clouds  for  a  meaning  and  a  lesson 
which  should  properly  be  found  near  and  plain 
upon  the  earth. 

If  the  play  is  a  tragedy  with  a  tragic  human  end- 
ing, Shakespeare's  course  is  perfectly  true,  but  in 


88  THE   OTHELLO. 

Dowden's  theory  it  is  inexplicable  that  he  should 
have  treated  the  Moor  and  his  bride  as  he  did;  and 
we  have  only  a  powerful  gore  piece.  At  best  the 
interpretation  of  Dowden  comes  out  where  it  goes 
in,  for  however  much  we  try  to  make  the  conflict  an 
abstract  one  between  good  and  evil,  it  is  still  one 
between  Othello  and  lago,  and  necessarily  over  the 
marriage  and  involving  the  whole  difficulty  thereof. 

The  conflict  over  the  **  Othello "  has  seemed 
peculiarly  hopeless,  not  so  much  because  the  inter- 
preters disagree  among  themselves  as  that  no  one 
of  them  has  framed  a  theory  consistent  with  itself 
and  capable  of  explaining  more  than  one  side  of  the 
great  double  difficulty.  One  trouble  may  appear 
to  be  cleared  away,  but  at  the  next  turn  chaos 
comes  again. 

1.  If  we  agree  with  Coleridge  and  the  long  line  of 
his  followers,  who  save  Desdemona  from  hateful 
and  abhorrent  amalgamation  by  making  Othello 
merely  a  tawny  Moor,  it  follows  that  the  root  idea 
of  a  vast  difference  of  race  overcome  by  a  wondrous 
power  of  maiden  love  is  cut  out  of  the  play. 
"  Every  jot  of  black  from  the  Moor's  face  is  so 
much  from  the  wonder  of  Desdemona's  love." 

2.  If  Othello  is  whitened  into  a  fit  complexion  for 
Desdemona,  there  is,  moreover,  no  reason  her 
father  should  have  opposed  the  marriage  or  died  of 
a  broken  heart  on  account  of  it,  or  indeed  that  there 
should  be  any  tragedy.  The  play  is  without  a  cen- 
tral principle  worthy  an  Elizabethan  drama. 


THE  MAZE   OF   THE   CRITICS,  89 

3.jlf,  on  the  other  hand,  Othello  was  a  sensual 
Arfican,  with  the  quick  jealousy  of  the  seraglio 
latent  in  his  blood  and  aroused  to  fury  by  the  first 
whisper  of  doubt,  Desdemona  is  irretrievably  sul- 
lied by  intimacy  with  such  a  savage,  and  the  whole 
plot  is  one  of  repulsive  naturalism,  offending 
against  nature,  destitute  of  artistic  beauty,  and  as 
thoroughly  non-Shakespearean  in  its  story  as  the 
piece  is  truly  Shakespearean  in  dialogue  and  verse. 

4.  If,  with  Turnbull,  we  first  whiten  Othello  to  fit 
him  for  Desdemona,  and  then  blacken  him  to  ac- 
count for  him  as  a  jealous  murderer,  can  any  elabo- 
ration and  charm  of  language  persuade  us  Shakes- 
peare really  intended  such  incongruity? 

5.  If  we  seek  escape  from  Othello's  unnatural 
and  unmanly  turn  by  Snider's  theory  of  his  previous 
criminality  with  Emilia  planting  doubt  in  his  mind, 
the  explanation  is  in  hopeless  conflict  with 
the  broad  lesson  of  the  effect  of  such  guilt  on 
Cassio,  who,  despite  it,  continues  a  worshiper  of 
female  virtue;  and  it  also  stains  Othello  with  the 
degradation  of  making  a  wanton  his  wife's  com- 
panion, and  befouls  that  wife  by  giving  her  a  hus- 
band who  is  both  black  and  adulterous.  This  out- 
Zolas  Zola. 

6.  If,  with  writers  like  Boas  and  Hudson,  we 
strive  to  get  rid  of  the  chief  difficulty  by  throwing 
the  pair  into  a  poetic  haze,  closing  our  eyes  to  any 
relations  between  them  except  what  we  see  with  the 
bodily  eye,  we  shall  find  Shakespeare  has  expressly . 
provided  that  this  shall  not  be  done,  and  has 
planned  instead  to  sting  and  wound  the  imagina- 


9®  THE   OTHELLO. 

tion,  through  lago's  offensive  language  and  con- 
tinued hymeneal  suggestion,  so  that  we  must  face 
and  solve  in  some  way  the  difficulty  of  black  and 
whjte  in  marriage. 

7?\If  we  are  capable  of  putting  a  sufficient 
glamour  over  the  Moor  to  make  him  an  actual 
husband  to  Desdemona,  and  yet  have  him 
surrender  to  jealousy  with  a  suddenness  show- 
ing him  at  heart  unfit  and  without  any  true, 
well-grounded  marital  confidence,  we  shall  find 
that  the  play  is  yet  so  constructed  as  to 
make  the  guilt  of  Desdemona  a  physical  impossi- 
bility, on  the  line  of  any  interpretation  heretofore 
offered ;  and  ithe  Moor  must  have  known  this  to  be 
true.  His  rage  is  monstrous  in  its  suddenness;  in- 
credible in  that  he  must  have  known  Desdemona 
could  not  be  guilty.  The  theory  which  allows  an 
opening  for  such  incongruities  must  be  wrong. 
There  must  be  some  ground  for  his  rage;  and  he 
must  have  believed  in  some  opportunity  for  guilt. 

There  is  a  sort  of  compound  theory  highly  popu- 
lar in  the  reading  circles  and  clubs  where  only  ex- 
purgated editions  are  used — a  view  which  has  the 
peculiar  merit  of  reconciliation,  for  it  leaves  Othello 
with  all  of  Shakespeare's  deep  contrasting  black 
upon  his  face,  and  thus  finds  extenuation  for  his 
jealous  enthrallment,  while  it  also  saves  Desdemona 
from  a  wrongful  marital  contact;  and  all  this 
through  the  assumption  of  the  ultimate  act  which 
seals  the  marital  bond  being  prorogued  or  ad- 
journed by  untoward  events  or  circumstances — an 
expedient  sometimes  used  by  the  dramatists,  who 


THE  MAZE   OF   THE   CRITICS.  9I 

heighten  an  effect  by  removing  a  cup  of  bliss  just  as 
it  is  about  to  be  tasted.  Thus,  on  the  night  of  the 
escapade  wedding,  we  are  told  the  call  of  war  broke 
in  to  force  Othello  away  from  marital  fruition,  call- 
ing him  first  to  the  Senate  and  then  on  that  very 
night  to  the  field  of  arms.  So  far  the  theory  works 
smoothly,  but  at  the  next  step  it  begins  to  fail,  and 
in  the  second  act  it  is  in  irremediable  conflict  with 
the  play,  as  anyone  with  the  unexpurgated  text  be- 
fore him  must  see. 

Even  before  the  first  act  is  ended  Brabantio 
ceases  to  attempt  interference,  the  Senate  gives 
consent  for  Desdemona  to  go  with  the  Moor, 
and  all  restraints  are  so  far  removed  that 
we  can  see  no  reason  why  she  might  not  have 
sailed  with  him  that  night.  In  the  next  act  the 
door  of  opportunity  is  opened  wide.  If  in  the 
opening  scenes  of  the  first  act  Shakespeare  seemed 
to  be  working  the  familiar  device  of  a  fateful  inter- 
ference with  marital  raptures,  it  is  soon  dropped, 
and  we  behold  in  the  next  act  the  contrast  of  a 
most  complete  opportunity,  strengthened  and  sup- 
ported by  circumstances  which  gave  the  added 
force  of  warm  and  seductive  temptation.  Events 
no  longer  operate  to  keep  the  black  man  off,  but  to 
bring  him  on.  Shall  we  not  quake  then  with 
renewed  fear  for  Desdemona?  Nothing  could  be 
more  ominous  than  the  nuptial  celebration  in  the 
second  act — an  event  universally  understood  in 
Shakespeare's  time  to  indicate  the  removal  of  every 
restraint  from  the  bridegroom  and  the  payment  of 
the  conjugal  debt  by  the  wife.     No  wonder  stu- 


92  THE   OTHELLO. 

dents  who  have  faced  the  full  text  in  the  light  of 
the  peculiar  meaning  of  the  nuptial  celebration  as 
generally  understood  have  reached  the  unwelcome 
conclusion  of  a  consummated  marriage,  with 
Othello  summoned  later  in  the  night  '*  from  his 
marriage  bed." 

Here  is  the  old  dilemma  again.  Critics  like 
Boas,  who  feel  forced  by  the  nuptial  celebration  to 
think  of  the  pair  as  occupying  the  bed  of  marriage, 
can  never  preserve  Desdemona  in  her  delicacy  save 
by  whitening  Othello  into  a  properly  accepted  hus- 
band, and  when  they  do  that  he  becomes  a  con- 
temptibly jealous  wretch.  Turn  which  way  we 
may,  the  critics  close  one  door  of  difficulty  only  to 
open  another,  while  some  aspects  of  the  general 
enigma  apply  to  them  all. 

One  great  and  fatal  defect,  common  to  all  theo- 
ries now  extant, — from  Snider's  belief  of  Othello 
getting  fit  retribution  for  his  alleged  adultery  with 
Emilia  to  Dowden's  vision  of  abstract  virtue  em- 
bodied and  triumphant  in  him, — is  that  they  give  no 
extenuation,  none  of  the  necessary  mitigation  of 
tragedy — do  not  cause  us  to  feel  we  might  have 
done  as  the  Moor  and  Desdemona  in  delicacy,  in- 
nocence, and  high  honor.  They  fail  to  reach  and 
sound  the  chord  of  fellow-feeling.  The  play  is  left 
without  place  or  claim  in  Shakespeare's  art — fails 
vitally.  We  can  have  no  true  Elizabethan  tragedy 
until  something  appears  which  causes  a  woman 
sitting  at  the  play  to  think  she,  in  Desdemona's 
way,  might  have  wedded  with  a  Moor  in  unstained 
delicacy;  a  man  that,  if  in  Othello's  place,  he  too 


THE.  MAZE   OF   THE   CRITICS.  '93 

might  have  been  constrained  in  honor  to  such  quick 
doubts  and  rage. 

Take  any  theory  now  extant,  and  the  whole  piece 
is  disorganized.  (^The  turmoil  all  comes  from  the 
marriage,  and  it  remains  a  wrong  thing,  unpalliated 
and  unfit  for  tragic  use — a  natural  and  indeed  a 
proper  source  of  trouble.  What  had  Othello  and 
Desdemona  a  right  to  expect?  What  anticipa- 
tions were  reasonable?  Why  should  they  think 
such  a  marriage  could  prosper?  We  know  Desde- 
mona is  not  false  to  her  husband,  but  we  feel,  with 
Adams,  she  was  false  to  her  family,  her  sex,  and 
her  country  in  marrying  Othello;  her  distress  seems 
only  the  natural  result  of  an  act  that  boded  no  good. 
Her  devotion  is  touching  but  misplaced,  and  we 
must  think  of  the  father,  whose  hopes  and  desires 
were  outraged,  and  whose  gray  hairs  were  brought 
to  bitterness.  Othello's  anxieties  show  real  misery, 
— wretched  is  it  for  him  to  suspect  so  falsely  loyal 
Desdemona, — yet  we  cannot  but  wonder  why  one 
so  quick  with  his  doubts  should  not  have  had  suffi- 
cient misgivings  to  keep  him  out  of  a  marriage 
which  any  sensible  man  would  know  could  not 
come  to  any  good.  So  long  as  we  think  of  the 
marriage  as  common,  and  seek  the  dramatic  lesson 
in  the  line  of  the  theories  ranging  from  that  which 
attributes  base  guilt  to  Othello  up  to  that  which 
makes  him  an  apotheosis  of  abstract  virtue,  the 
vital  principle  of  an  adequate  transfiguration  of  the 
forbidden  wedlock  is  utterly  lacking,  and  we  have 
only  base  realism  of  the  school  of  Zola,  the  some- 
what better  of  Snider  and  Schlegel,  or,  striving 


94  THE  OTHELLO.    . 

higher,  naught  but  the  cold  and  distant  abstraction 
of  Dowden.  I 

If  we  cease  to  consider  the  play  in  and  by  itself, 
and  view  it  broadly  as  marking  one  stage  in  the 
order  and  sequence  of  Shakespeare's  work,  the  re- 
sult is  the  same.  Occupied  as  he  had  long  been 
with  studies  in  which  painful  and  distressing  aspects 
of  erring  sexual  passion  were  surrounded  with  cir- 
cumstances of  mitigation  and  excuse  appealing  to 
the  common  sense  of  love-weakened  human  frailty, 
it  is  beyond  belief  that  the  great  chief  of  romantic 
poets  would  then  basely  descend  to  the  portrayal  of 
a  gross,  sickening  amalgamation  where  soften- 
ing or  palliation  is  wholly  impossible.  No  con- 
sideration of  poetic  or  dramaturgic  art  could  sug- 
gest such  a  thing,  only  sheer  horror  and  naturalism. 
Where,  even  in  modern  realism,  has  any  veritist 
dared  use  miscegenation  for  dramatic  purposes  in 
the  manner  so  long  and  so  outrageously  attributed 
to  the  great  master  of  poetic  and  romantic  drama? 
Designing  characters  for  compassion  and  sketching 
scenes  intended  to  awaken  sympathy,  it  is  incredi- 
ble that  Shakespeare  could  forget  his  art  in  produc- 
ing this  piece,  and  expect  to  command  the  tears  of 
the  Elizabethans  with  a  black-white  amalgamation, 
hopelessly  offensive  in  nature  even  when  valid  in 
law. 

In  his  previous  work  Shakespeare's  portrayals 
of  the  baser  passion  were  often  distressing  and 
painful,  but  the  wrong  was  either  condemned  and 
punished,  or,  if  the  error  was  one  of  elevated 
characters,  it  was  always  tinged  at  last  with  heart- 


THE  MAZE  OP  THE  CRITICS.  95 

moving  palliation.  We  may  feel  reluctant  to 
admit  any  touch  or  suggestion  of  fellow-feel- 
ing arising  from  the  oflfenses  of  Angelo  or 
Gertrude  or  Cressida, — we  may  not  consciously 
think  it  a  possibility  we  might  have  done  as 
they  under  like  stress  and  temptation, — ^but  that 
is  the  underlying  emotion  nevertheless,  and  in 
no  other  way  could  the  effect  be  truly  dramatic. 
Men  may  sometimes  be  so  strong  and  well  they 
cannot  realize  they  shall  ever  grow  weak  and 
faint, — may  wax  so  proud  in  purse  and  wealth  they 
can  never  think  of  poverty  as  possible  to  them, — 
but  with  the  great  passion  of  sex  there  is  a  con- 
sciousness that  temptation  must  not  be  allowed  too 
near;  that  guards  and  defenses  are  not  to  be  neg- 
lected; that  even  comparatively  slight  imprudence 
may  quickly  bring  one  to  a  level  where  others  are 
already  suffering;  that  the  wrong  and  the  misery 
are  ever  within  easy  reach  for  even  the  best  con- 
trolled. 

Through  this  general  sense  of  insecurity  the  one 
touch  of  nature  is  easily  reached  in  the  drama. 
Even  though  as  firmly  and  exceptionally  chaste  as 
Angelo,  temptation  might  suddenly  spring  upon  us 
I  with  a  power  no  longer  to  be  resisted.     If  wedded, 
I  like  Gertrude,  and  with  increase  of  appetite  by  what 
%  it  fed  on,  we  must  realize  it  possible  that  an  over- 
(j  powering  seduction  might  come  upon  us,  sadly  de- 
!j  stroying  good  intent  and  forcing  us  to  base  wrong 
by  the  power  of  aberrant  passion.     Even  Cressida's 
weakness  is  not  without  the  pale  of  warm  possi- 
bility, and  so  of  sympathy.     Shakespeare  carries 


9^  THE   OTHELLO. 

extenuation  of  wrong  appetite  to  a  great  limit. 
Even  in  the  case  of  Gertrude  and  the  King  we 
half  excuse  the  foul  assassination,  so  strongly  do 
we  feel  that  the  pair  were  victims  rather  than  volun- 
tary criminals;  that  the  force  of  passion  would 
scarcely  permit  them  to  do  anything  less  than  get 
rid  of  the  obstacle  in  their  way  as  best  they  might. 
This  is  Shakespeare's  greatest  extreme  in  invoking 
sympathy  for  amorous  guilt;  the  closest  approach 
to  the  line  he  never  overstepped.  Bold  as  are  the 
demands  upon  our  lenity  in  the  name  of  erring 
desire,  he  has  never  asked  any  grain  of  compassion 
for  rape,  incest,  or  miscegenation,  unless  indeed  he 
perpetrated  the  outrage  in  the  last  instance  in  the 
"  Othello."  (in  all  his  previous  and  subsequent 
portrayals  of  betraying  love  in  characters  capa- 
ble of  exciting  sympathy  Shakespeare  kept  within 
the  limit  where  palliation  could  be  shown  and  the 
fellow-feeling  touched,  however  base  and  wrong 
the  act  might  be.  The  "  Othello  "  alone  is  said  to 
be  a  mysterious,  unaccountable  exception.  Here 
we  have  a  hero  and  heroine  plunged  into  a 
relation  where  extenuation  or  excuse  seems 
as  impossible  as  true  sympathy.  If  the  purpose 
were  only  to  emphasize  the  disgusting  and  re- 
pulsive, we  might  see  why  Shakespeare  under- 
took it,  but  the  characters  are  noble  and  intended 
to  fasten  upon  our  truest  sympathies — the  Moor 
one  of  'the  grandest  of  heroes  and  Desdemona  so 
wondrous  in  loveliness  that  delicacy  is  wrought 
into  the  very  verse  forms  of  her  speech  so  profuse 
in  the  feminine  ccesura. 


THE  MAZE   OF   THE   CRITICS.  97 

The  puzzle  and  maze  of  the  critics  can  never  be 
understood  until  we  see  that  this  exception  is  ap- 
parent, not  real ;  that  in  art  and  in  heartfelt  mitiga- 
tion of  aberrant  love  this  play  diffeis  from  the 
others  only  in  carrying  the  Shakespearean  method 
to  an  issue  higher  and  finer  than  before.  Redeem- 
ing, touching  excuse  and  mitigation  are  thrown 
upon  the  black-white  union,  just  as  upon  other  and 
more  wrongful  contacts,  although  by  a  new  and 
striking  device.  (^W'e  must  sympathize  with  this 
pair  as  we  never  did  with  erring  love  before;  and 
yet  it  is  but  the  old  palliative  method  of  Shakes- 
peare carried  onward  and  upward  and  now  reaching 
its  finest  ultimate  triumph.  The  great  difference 
is  that,  before,  the  cruel  power  of  passion  was  the 
excuse  for  gross  and  actual  wrong;  now,  we  have 
a  heavenly  purity  and  honor  offering  piteous  ex- 
tenuation for  an  error  which  was  one  of  form  and 
outward  appearance,  not  of  actual  conduct.  Before, 
we  saw  the  bed  of  marriage  stained  or  maidenhood 
dishonored  through  passion's  tyranny;  now,  we  be- 
hold Othello  saving  a  wrong-seeming  marriage  at 
the  behest  of  a  soul-love  by  sending  Desdemona 
alone  to  her  bride-bed  in  a  saintly  and  devoted 
/  dhastity.^ 

The  scene  of  the  nuptial  celebration  must  be  read 
in  the  reverse  of  the  meaning  put  on  it  by  the 
critics  if  the  ^reat  error  common  to  them  all  is 
ever  to  be  corrected.  It  denotes  not  amalgamation 
or  miscegenation,  but  transfiguration.  We  must 
hark  back  to  the  old  hymeneal  poetry  and  customs 
of  Shakespeare's  time  to  find  the  method  in  which 


98  THE   OTHELLO. 

palliation  and  excuse  are  invoked  for  the  black- 
white  marriage  by  taking  us  to  the  nuptial  cham- 
ber and  disclosing  the  redeeming  chastity  and  ab- 
stinence which  transform  the  union  and  bring  it 
home  to  our  sympathies  and  our  bosoms  in  a  way 
forever  impossible  if  the  relations  of  Othello  and 
Desdemona  were  those  of  consummated  satisfac- 
tion. 

Of  all  things  we  must  beware  of  literalism — of  the 
letter  which  killeth — and  look,  in  Shakespeare,  for 
the  spirit  which  giveth  life.  It  is  true  the  usual  pur- 
pose of  the  old  nuptial  poetry  and  custom  was  to  de- 
note marital  consummation.  But  while  Shakes- 
peare adhered  generally  to  the  old  method,  he  here 
turned  it  quickly,  cut  it  short,  made  it  flame  out 
in  thrilling  and  grateful  surprise  at  the  door  of  the 
nuptial  chamber.  Often,  before,  he  had  played  the 
changes  upon  an  arrested  marriage  stopping  short 
of  relations  of  sex.  Mariana  had  furnished  such  an 
instance  following  a  wedding  of  pre-contract; 
Helena  another,  when  she  sought  by  stratagem 
access  to  her  husband's  bed;  and  the  Elizabethans 
could  not  have  been  wholly  unprepared,  after 
Shakespeare  had  so  dealt  with  base  or  eccen- 
tric aberrations  of  the  great  impulse,  to  believe 
he  would  not  stop  without  giving  it  an  upward  de- 
flection toward  the  stars.  That  the  underplot  of  a 
virginity  retained  in  marriage  should  be  developed 
in  the  case  of  Desdemona  with  greater  delicacy, 
chasteness,  mystery,  vagueness  than  with  Helena 
and  Mariana,  only  made  it  the  more  beautiful  and 
entrancing.    If  the  artist  had  before  dealt  in  open 


/ 


THE   MAZE   OF   THE   CRITICS.  99 

lights  and  shades,  his  work  became  the  finer  when 
he  threw  it  in  penumbra. 

Such  fine  artistic  development  before  the  com- 
mon playgoer  was  possible  in  Shakespeare's 
day,  because  the  usual  marital  result  which 
the  dramatist  sought  to  negative  was  then  a 
subject  of  special  observance  apart  from  the 
wedding  ceremony  and  as  embodied  in  the  nup- 
tial celebration.  The  religious  rite  wherein  the 
priests  blessed  the  bed  of  the  newly  married  couple 
was  still  fresh  in  tradition;  and  the  epithalamium  or 
bride-song  which  celebrated  the  completion  of  mar- 
riage on  the  nuptial  night  was  then  in  the  bloom  of 
its  early  and  transient  popularity  in  English  verse. 
Hence  a  turn  in  the  bride-song — a  peculiar  devel- 
opment of  the  nuptial  celebration — an  unexpected 
farewell — a  singular  absence  of  the  bridegroom  or 
an  accidental  summons  finding  him  at  night  else- 
where than  with  his  bride — these  were  only  fresh 
surprises  in  an  old  method  stimulating  the  dramatic 
interest  and  suspense  of  an  Elizabethan  audience. 

Modern  critics  are  hopelessly  wrong,  whether, 
with  Boas,  they  are  constrained  to  see  Othello  sum- 
moned in  the  night  "from  his  marriage  bed,"  or 
whether  they  aim  to  overlook  the  entire  difficulty. 
Instead  of  striving  to  hold  the  imagination  away 
from  the  physical  relations  of  the  pair,  Shakes- 
peare intends  us  to  see  straight  through  them  and 
behold  a  condition  which  supplies  the  indispensable 
dramatic  need  of  something  to  transfigure  the  sup- 
posed base  amalgamation  into  a  thing  of  beauty 
and  pathos. I  In  the  "Maid's  Tragedy"  of  Beau- 


too  THE  OTHELLO. 

mont  and  Fletcher  we  are  told  that  when  the  pair 
first  retired  and  the  bride  declared  her  resolution  of 
denial  there  was  *'  never  such  a  nuptial  night  as 
that."  But  that  of  Othello  and  Desdemona  is  as 
much  more  wonderful  as  it  is  more  truly  chaste 
and  powerful  in  the  extenuation  and  palliation  it 
provides.  Unless  we  comprehend  it,  the  higher 
pwDwer  of  this  play  remains  a  dead  letter. 

It  is  impossible  that  the  old  audiences,  with  their 
hot  prejudices  of  race,  could  ever  have  been  recon- 
ciled to  the  intermarriage  on  the  ground  taken  by 
the  ablest  and  most  ingenious  of  our  modern  critics. 
Hazlitt  says  he  leans  toward  lago's  estimate  of  Des- 
demona, "  and  all  circumstances  considered,  and 
platonics  out  of  the  question,  if  we  were  to  cast  the" 
complexion  of  Desdemona,  we  should  say  she  had 
a  very  fair  skin  and  very  light  auburn  hair  inclining 
to  yellow.  We  at  the  same  time  give  her  credit  for 
purity  and  delicacy  of  sentiment."  Whatever  the 
color  of  her  hair,  and  the  temperament  disclosed 
by  her  skin,  Desdemona's  heart  was  of  ideal  purity 
and  her  love  unfortunate  only  in  being  "  too  sub- 
tle potent,  tuned  too  sharp  in  sweetness,"  and  the 
Elizabethans  so  understood  her. 

Hazlitt  is  as  far  astray  as  the  other  critics.  To 
correct  the  multiplied  errors  of  criticism  we  need 
not  endeavor  to  put  an  ethical  meaning  on  the  play 
as  a  whole,  or  strive  for  abstract  moral  lessons  of 
warning  or  emulation  in  the  individual  characters: 
the  simple  test  of  artistic  and  dramaturgic  fitness 
will  suffice.  Simply  from  the  standpoint  of  his  art 
as  a  playwright,  it  is  altogether  improbable  Shakes- 


THE  MAZE   OF    THE   CRITICS.  lol 

peare  could  ever  have  written  such  a  play  as  mod- 
ern critics  consider  the  ''  Othello  "  to  be.  The  in- 
terpretation which  later  generations  have  put  on  it 
is  one  his  own  age  could  never  have  accepted.  ffNot 
as  a  matter  of  morality,  but  merely  as  one  of  drama- 
turgic art,  Shakespeare's  fellows  would  have  found 
it  easy  to  take  the  '*  Othello  "  as  a  tale  of  super- 
sensuous  love;  quite  impossible  to  think  it  one  of 
gross  or  offensive  affinity.  Above  all  things  they 
praised  Shakespeare  for  his  supreme  skill  in  weav- 
ing his  plots  so  as  to  startle,  excite,  bewilder,  and  fas- 
cinate; to  redeem,  transform,  palliate^ — compel  the 
listener  to  fall  in  love  with  what  he  at  first  feared 
to  look  upon.  Turning  to  the  tributes  which  poets 
of  his  time  paid  to  Shakespeare  right  after  his  death, 
one  must  soon  be  convinced  that,  as  they  knew  the 
man  and  his  method,  nothing  could  be  more  un- 
likely than  that  he  would  permit  a  suggestion  of 
such  a  thing  as  a  miscegenation  between  superior 
characters  to  enter  into  one  of  his  plots,  unless,  in- 
deed, he  did  it  only  to  prepare  the  way  for  a  thrill- 
ing contrast  and  surprise  in  making  the  false  ap- 
pearance of  repulsiveness  transform  itself  into 
something  of  delight.  J  That  they  could  quickly, 
readily  believe.  Above  all  things  they  praised  him 
for  the  extenuation  and  fascination  which  his  genius 
cast  upon  tragic  themes — for  the  strange  transfigu- 
rations which  he  worked  out  in  his  great  tragedies, 
until  the  listener  felt  himself  molded  anew  by  heav- 
enly fire.  It  was  left  for  the  realistic  critics  of  later 
centuries,  misled  by  the  loss  of  the  old  nuptial 
poetry  and  other  hymeneal  lights  of  the  Elizabethan 


I02  THE  OTHELLO. 

age,  to  suppose  that  one  of  Shakespeare's  most 
carefully  wrought  works  deals  with  a  naked,  unre- 
lieved, unpalliated,'  and  disgusting  union  of  black 
and  white  in  marriage.  If  Elizabethan  poets  ever 
turn  in  their  graves  it  must  be  at  this. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE   DEBT   TO   THE   MYSTERY   PLAY. 

Just  what  crude  old  interludes,  moralities,  or 
plays  Shakespeare  may  have  witnessed  when  he  and 
the  English  drama  were  both  in  early  youth,  we  do 
not  know;  tut  his  biographers  are  quite  ready  to 
believe  he  must  have  gone  to  Coventry,  less  than  a 
day's  journey  from  Stratford,  to  witness  some  of 
the  annual  productions  of  the  Corpus  Christi  mir- 
acle or  mystery  drama,  and  have  there  received  an 
impulse  which  stimulated  and  guided  his  early 
efforts  as  a  playwright. 

Anyone  can  readily  fill  out  the  details — the  fever- 
ish expectation  waiting  for  the  day  when  the  eager 
and  expectant  lad  should  see  what  he  had  heard 
talked  of  so  long,  the  excitement  of  posting  off 
with  his  companions  to  Coventry,  the  wonder  over 
the  marvels  there  unfolded  on  the  movable,  open- 
air  stages:  Adam  and  Eve  in  suits  of  white  leather; 
the  Supreme  Being  with  gilded  face  and  hair;  the 
mouth  of  hell  with  immense  jaws,  filled  with  fierce 
teeth,  opening  and  closing,  while  fire  and  smoke 
were  seen  within.  After  the  return  home  these 
things  would  be  talked  about  for  weeks,  months; 
some  of  them  would  certainly  be  imitated  on  a  small 
scale  by  young  Will  and  his  companions.  Halli- 
well-Phillipps    points    to    several     references    in 

J03 


104  THE   OTHELLO, 

Shakespeare  which  may  be  taken  as  echoes  of  the 
miracle  or  mystery  drama,  but  I  find  much  fresher 
and  clearer  ones  in  the  poet's  earliest  work — 
'*  Titus  Andronicus."  Lovers  of  Shakespeare  may 
dislike  to  recognize  that  crude,  repulsive  perform- 
ance as  one  coming  even  from  the  'prentice  hand, 
and  in  some  respects  it  is  indeed  to  be  regretted 
that  the  crude  but  strong  boyish  effort  did  not 
perish,  although  not  from  the  standpoint  of  one 
who  desires  a  comparative  study  of  the  poet's 
growth  and  development. 

The  first  analogy  indicated  by  Halliwell-Phillipps 
springs  from  Shakespeare's  famous  phrase  "  out- 
Herods  Herod,"  as  reflecting  his  recollection  of  the 
violence  with  which  the  hated  king  had  raged  in  the 
slaughter  of  the  innocents  in  the  old  mystery  play. 
Referring  to  the  scene  in  the  Coventry  mystery 
where  "  a  soldier  appears  before  Herod  with  a 
child  on  the  end  of  his  spear,"  Halliwell- 
Phillipps  thinks  the  incident  one  "  to  be  re- 
membered, however  rude  may  have  been  the 
property  which  represented  the  infant."  Assur- 
edly so;  but  it  is  singular  so  ripe  a  Shakes- 
pearean scholar  should  not  have  found  more 
direct  evidence  of  this  early  impression  in  the  poet's 
first  effort,  written  when  the  recollection  of  the 
mystery  was  fresh  and  strong  upon  him.  It  is 
not  unlikely  that  parts  of  ''  Titus  Andronicus " 
may  have  been  written,  or  at  least  outlined  in 
the  young  poet's  mind,  before  he  went  to  Lon- 
don, and  while  the  scene  of  the  soldier  impal- 
ing  the    infant    was    still    vivid    in    memory.     In 


THE  DEBT   TO    THE  MYSTERY  PLAY.      105 

this  first  play  the  nurse,  when  she  brings  in 
the  hated  blackamoor  babe,  tells  Aaron  the  Em- 
press "  bids  thee  christen  it  with  thy  dagger's 
point";  and  a  moment  later  Demetrius  breaks 
out:  "I'll  broach  the  tadpole  on  my  rapier's 
point " — a  threat  which  would  have  been  executed 
as  literally  as  by  Herod's  soldier  in  the  mystery  had 
not  Aaron  been  present  to  rescue  his  ill-starred 
offspring. 

Halliwell-Phillipps  next  cites  Falstaff's  compari- 
son of  the  black  flea  on  Bardolph's  nose  to  ''  a  black 
soul  burning  in  hell."  This,  and  the  frequent  ref- 
erences to  condemned  souls  as  black,  he  thinks  are 
reflections  of  the  scenes  in  the  Coventry  play  where 
"  the  black  or  damned  souls  appeared  with  sooty 
faces."  Undoubtedly  so ;  but  even  more  interesting 
proof  is  furnished  in  the  fact  of  Aaron's  entire  char- 
acter being  cast  in  the  very  mold  of  a  "  black 
soul."  This  first  Moor  that  Shakespeare  drew, 
with  the  sooty  damned  in  fresh  recollection,  is 
thoroughly  black,  but  really  Moorish  only  in  that 
respect  and  in  name.  His  newborn  child  is  indeed 
described  as  *'  tawny,"  but  because  it  is  only  a  half- 
blood  (a  significant  reminder  to  those  who  have 
thought  the  "  tawny  "  Prince  of  Morocco  a  true 
Shakespearean  Moor  in  color).  Aaron  has,  in 
addition  to  dense  blackness,  woolly  hair  and  thick 
lips,  showing  the  confusion  of  negro  characteristics. 
But  these  confused  Moorish  and  negro  traits  are 
all  the  merest  outward  trapping;  in  spirit  and  char- 
acter Aaron  is  a  '*  black  soul  "  of  the  mystery  re- 
costumed  and  brought  into  the  secular  drama.     He 


io6  THE  OTHELLO. 

is  anti-Giristian,  "  an  irreligious  Moor,"  and  "  a 
misbelieving  Moor."  The  climax  of  his  black 
spirit  is  reached  when  he  breaks  out: 

"  Let  fools  do  good  and  fair  men  call  for  grace, 
Aaron  will  have  his  soul  black  like  his  face." 

Aaron  is  not  valiant  like  a  Moor,  but  cowardly 
and  base,  surrendering  himself  and  his  child  to  a 
single  Goth,  apparently  without  a  struggle. 
"  Policy  and  stratagem  "  are  his  means  of  villainy. 
With  negro  and  Moorish  features  laid  on  like  a 
cloak,  Aaron  is  at  heart  the  base  and  treacherous 
•*  black  soul  "  of  the  mystery,  with  no  real  Moorish 
valor  or  character. 

But  the  influence  of  the  mystery  play  upon 
Shakespeare's  early  work  extends  beyond  Aaron's 
blackness  of  face  and  heart,  or  the  threat  of  Deme- 
trius to  impale  the  babe.  It  is  because  the  youth- 
ful Shakespeare  was  not  yet  emancipated  from  the 
crude  horror  of  the  miracle  play  that  we  have  so 
much  of  that  sort  of  thing  in  *'  Titus  Andronicus." 
This  ''  slaughterhouse  "  of  a  play,  which  so  reeks 
and  smells  of  blood,  was  written  by  a  youth  who 
had  not  come  to  himself,  but  struck  out  to  depict 
some  such  horror  and  bodily  suffering  as  he  had 
seen  in  the  crucifixion  scenes  of  the  mystery, 
wherein  the  Saviour  was  represented  as  enduring 
extreme  agony,  the  nailing  to  the  cross  and  wound- 
ing with  spears  being  apparently  so  faithfully  car- 
ried out  that  the  actor  who  enacted  the  part  seemed 
at  last  to  be  literally  bleeding  from  every  pore  and 
bathed  in  blood  from  head  to  foot.    *'  Oh,  sir,"  said 


THE  DEBT   TO    THE  MYSTERY  PLAY.      107 

an  old  Lancashire  man  of  sixty,  approached  by  Rev. 
John  Shaw  in  1644  on  redemption  through  Christ, 
"  I  think  I  heard  of  that  man  you  speak  of  once  in 
a  play  at  Kendall  called  Corpus  Christi  play,  when 
there  was  a  man  on  a  tree  and  blood  ran  down." 
It  w-as  the  influence  of  such  models  upon  Shakes- 
peare, in  his  raw  youth,  which  inspired  the  blood 
and  horror  of  *'  Titus  Andronicus." 

But  whether  the  youthful  Shakespeare  saw  the 
miracle  play  at  Coventry  is  really  immaterial.  If 
he  did  not  see  it,  unquestionably  he  heard  accounts 
of  it  from  eyewitnesses,  who  could  give  freshness 
to  a  story  which  he  had  listened  to  in  one  form  or 
another  from  his  earliest  recollection.  Doubtless 
he  had  heard  old  men  tell  of  the  features  of  the  mys- 
tery as  they  had  seen  it  enacted  at  various  times; 
and  his  mother,  being  of  a  Catholic  family,  must 
have  instilled  into  his  mind  those  features  pertain- 
ing to  the  blessed  Virgin.  The  boyish  imagina- 
tion, however,  would  beyond  doubt  be  most  im- 
pressed by  the  scenes  of  crude  horror  and  bodily 
torture  attending  the  crucifixion  and  by  the  weird, 
black  faces  of  the  lost  souls.  The  sooty  visage 
would  strike  deep  into  the  mind  of  a  sensitive,  im- 
aginative lad  who  had  never  seen  such  a  complex- 
ion in  real  life  and  could  hardly  think  of  it  as  fit 
for  anything  but  the  doomed.  Undoubtedly 
Shakespeare  and  his  playmates  must  have  imitated 
scenes  from  the  mystery,  and  we  may  well  believe 
the  future  dramatist  learned  his  first  lessons  in  the- 
atrical make-up  by  blackening  his  face  with  soot 
from  the  chimney.     The  miracle  play  contained  no 


io8  THE   OTHELLO. 

feature  which  boys  would  catch  more  quickly  or 
copy  more  certainly  than  that  of  the  black  faces. 
This  early,  A^vid  impression  would  not  give  way 
readily  when  later  he  learned  of  Moors  as  livinj^ 
black  men,  neither  fiends  nor  lost  spirits;  he  would 
find  it  difficult  at  first  to  think  of  them  as  beings  of 
everyday  life  and  character.  Nothing  could  be 
more  natural,  therefore,  than  that  his  first  crude 
efforts  as  a  playwright  should  reflect  the  miracle 
play  in  picturing  physical  agonies  and  tortures,  with 
at  least  one  abominable  and  detestable  black  face 
darkening  the  scene  from  time  to  time.  Calling 
Aaron  a  Moor,  he  would  naturally  paint  him  like  a 
"  black  soul." 

While  the  same  old  source  that  supplied  the  in- 
spirations for  horror  and  bodily  pain  furnished 
also  the  weirdness  of  the  blackened  face  showing 
against  the  white,  and  the  beauty  of  an  uncon- 
summate  marriage,  the  latter  was  not  then  an  epi- 
sode that  young  Shakespeare  would  seek  to  intro- 
duce into  the  secular  drama.  Indeed,  after  his  first 
turgid  effort  he  began  to  discard  nearly  all  the  con- 
ceptions which  he  had  taken  from  the  mystery,  be- 
ing evidently  dissatisfied  with  them.  Realizing  his 
error,  he  turns  away  from  unpalliated  horror,  tor- 
ture, and  the  blackened  faces  of  the  damned.  The 
rapid  improvement  of  public  taste  at  this  time 
doubtless  aided  the  youthful  Shakespeare's  quick 
turn  to  better  things;  for  even  in  dramatists  who 
were  not  to  be  compared  with  him  we  notice  within 
a  decade  a  marked  advance  over  the  raw  work  of 
"  Titus  Andronicus  "  in  the  use  of  the  same  ma- 


THE  DEBT   TO    THE  MYSTERY  PLAY.      109 

terials.     While  Shakespeare  dropped  the  powerful 
black-white  contrast  as  if  resolved  never  to  touch  it 
again,    the    authors    of    the    "  Spanish     Moor's 
Tragedy  "  took  it  up  about  ten  years  later  in  re- 
newing  the   experiment.     As   with    Shakespeare's 
Aaron,  their  Moor — Eleazer — is  such  only  in  name 
and   outward   trappings;   irreligion   and   depravity 
unite  with  blackness  of  face  to  prove  him  a  true  de- 
scendant of  the   black   soul   of  the   old   mystery. 
Eleazer  is  no  better  than  Aaron,  but  there  is  an 
effort  to  elevate  his  relation  with  a  white  woman. 
The   pair   are   lawfully   married,    whereas    young 
Shakespeare  had  made  the  relation  utterly  lawless. 
Still  more  marked  is  the  attempt  to  elevate  the  mar- 
riage, on  one  side  at  least,  by  representing  the 
white  wife  as  pure  in  heart  and  devoted  in  spirit, 
thus  disclosing  the  aim  of  lesser  playwrights,  after 
a  ten  years'  advance  in  taste,  to  throw  extenuation 
over  the  black-white  relation  which  Shakespeare 
had  treated  as  thoroughly  vile    and  then  dropped 
as  unfit  for  dramatic  art.     But  the  endeavor  was 
not    successful.     The     black-white     marriage     in 
"Lust's  Dominion"  remains  utterly  abominable; 
all  the  devotion  of  Maria  cannot  induce  us  to  re- 
gard it  with  sympathy.     At  best  we  can  only  pity 
her,   as  if  married  to   a  loathsome   drunkard   or 
criminal.     With  taste  rapidly  improving  this  would 
seem  likely  to  put  an  end  to  the  effort  to  embody  a 
black-white  marriage  in  tragic  poetry  along  the  old 
lines;  but  five  years  later  we  find  Shakespeare  re- 
turning to  the  sources  of  his  first  theme,  with  his 
art  at  its  highest  and  his  genius  amply  instructed  by 


no  THE   OTHELLO. 

the  early  failures  of  himself  and  others,  as  well  as 
by  the  higher  suggestions  of  Cinthio  and  the 
mystery.  He  now  finds  that  the  powerful  and 
weird  contrast  of  black  and  white  in  the  mystery 
play  can  be  carried  over  to  the  relation  of  the  sexes 
and  brought  into  line  with  the  requirements  of  the 
highest  poetic  art. 

Disposed  still  to  cater  somewhat  to  the  gross 
tastes  of  his  audiences,  Shakespeare  had  now 
learned  that  crude  horror,  bodily  torture,  and  un- 
natural relations  of  sex  can  rarely  receive  the  ex- 
tenuation of  dramatic  art.  Since  the  passing  of 
barbarism  we  do  not  desire  to  pull  out  the  tongues 
or  chop  oflf  the  hands  of  our  enemies;  nor  do  we 
think  of  such  barbarism  as  something  which  may 
possibly  be  inflicted  upon  us.  The  agonies  of  cru- 
cifixion are  not  for  us  as  spectators  or  possible  vic- 
tims. The  belief  that  it  might  be  so  with  us  is  lack- 
ing; we  experience  only  the  feeling  of  sheer  horror, 
not  that  of  a  fellow-feeling;  there  is  a  failure  of  a  true 
dramatic  result.  Quickly  schooled  in  this  general 
truth,  Shakespeare  had  ceased  to  deal  with  love  be- 
tween black  and  white  until  in  the  perfection  of  his 
art  he  bethought  him  of  a  means  to  extenuate  such 
a  relationship  in  a  way  to  bring  it  home  to  the 
noblest  men  and  women  as  one  into  which  they 
might  have  entered  under  like  circumstances  with 
no  wrong  to  their  hearts  or  their  ideals.  He  will 
not  now  have  the  relationship  wholly  vile,  as  he 
had  done  with  Aaron,  nor  will  he  attempt  to  redeem 
it  for  the  wife  alone,  as  others  tried  to  do  with 
Maria;  he  will  transfigure  it  altogether.     Learn- 


THE   DEBT   TO    THE   MYSTERY  PLAY.      HI 

ing  much  from  the  Italian  tale  of  Cinthio,  but 
more  from  the  mystery,  he  will  now  give  his  Moor 
a  fine  personal  appearance;  a  lofty,  heroic,  Chris- 
tian character;  but  he  will  not  repeat  Giraldi's  error 
of  throwing  him  into  marital  relations  inherently 
wrong  and  unfit  for  a  truly  elevated  manhood.  He 
will  redeem  and  extenuate  a  marriage  of  black  and 
white,  causing  motives  of  religion  and  purity  to 
hold  it  unconsummate,  and  upon  such  beauty  the 
lurid  light  of  jealousy  shall  arise.  We  shall  have 
beauty,  pathos,  and  yet  high  unrelenting  truth. 

Even  as  in  his  life  Shakespeare  went  back  to  pass 
his  closing  years  at  the  scene  of  his  youth,  so  in  the 
round  of  his  dramatic  labor  he  returned  near  the 
close  to  a  theme  with  which  he  began.  No 
horrors  and  tortures  now,  but  all  the  amazing 
contrast  of  the  black  face  against  the  white; 
and  in  the  same  old  mystery  play  where  he 
first  found  that  discord  he  now  sees  the  one 
thing  to  redeem  it  in  wedlock — an  unconsum- 
mate union.  The  parallel  is  not  exact;  Shakes- 
peare, as  usual,  recombines  the  dramatic  materials. 
In  the  old  mystery  the  black  faces  appeared 
in  different  scenes  from  those  which  told  of  the 
unconsummate  marriage;  the  men  of  sooty  vis- 
age had  no  relation  to  the  maiden  wife;  they  pre- 
sented in  their  blackness  a  contrast  only  to  the 
white  faces  of  the  saved.  Grasping  the  black-white 
discord  and  converting  it  to  his  purpose,  Shakes- 
peare would  not  use  it  merely  to  distinguish  the 
doomed  from  the  saved,  as  in  the  mystery,  but,  as  a 
secular  dramatist,  would  naturally  strive  to  involve 


112  THE   OTHELLO. 

it  in  an  aberrant  love.  Such  had  been  the  early 
effort,  but  it  had  failed  to  present  the  extenuation 
of  true  art;  the  relations  of  Aaron  and  Tamora 
arouse  only  horror  and  disgust.  Now,  in  the  full- 
ness of  his  power  and  art,  he  returns  to  the  old 
weird  contrast,  perceiving  that  if  the  aberrant  love 
may  turn  upward,  not  downward,  and  be  caused 
to  touch  the  chord  of  fellow-feeling,  he  can  win  a 
glorious  triumph  where  all  others  had  failed  before, 
himself  included.  From  the  same  source  whence 
he  got  the  weird  black-white  contrast,  which  he 
once  sought  to  entangle  with  basely  aberrant  love, 
he  now  gets  the  means  to  redeem  it  in  sanctified 
marriage.  Without  questioning  what  Shakespeare 
owes  to  Cinthio  and  the  Italian  tale,  we  must 
see  that  his  greatest  debt  was  to  the  portrayal  of 
the  unconsummate  marriage  of  Joseph  and  Mary  in 
the  old  mystery. 

Those  who  cannot  think  Shakespeare  wrote 
"  Titus  Andronicus  ''  may  consistently  hold  that  he 
rose  to  the  peculiar  art  of  the  "  Othello  "  without 
the  need  of  a  stepping-stone  or  intermediate  ex- 
periment; that  he  withheld  his  hand  altogether 
from  a  marriage  of  amalgamation  until  he  was  pre- 
pared to  correct  the  error  of  a  relation  vicious  on 
both  sides,  as  in  Aaron  and  Tamora;  of  a  one- 
sided palliation,  as  with  Maria;  or  of  a  Moor  en- 
nobled and  heroic,  but  surrendered  to  relations 
essentially  wrong  in  nature,  if  not  in  law,  as  in 
Cinthio's  hero. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

A  CHORD  THAT  SOUNDS  THROUGHOUT. 

Since  the  Edinburgh  Review,  early  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  spoke  of  the  **  moral  enigma  "  of 
the  "  Othello,"  which  had  "  perplexed  all  critics  of 
name,"  renewed  and  repeated  efforts  have  been  put 
forth  to  solve  it,  but,  as  I  think,  without  any  bet- 
ter success.  The  difficulties  which  have  been  pro- 
nounced moral  are  dramatic  and  sociological  as 
well,  but  all  hinge  upon  the  wrongful  intermarriage 
of  black  and  white.  As  the  play  stands  in  current 
interpretations,  with  the  marriage  taken  for  granted 
as  one  of  ordinary  and  consummated  relations,  the 
problems  are: 

(yHow  the  delicacy  of  the  surpassingly  refined 
Desdemona  is  to  be  preserved,  as  dramatic  in- 
tegrity requires,  in  her  supposed  marriage  with  a 
blackamoor. 

(2}, How  the  rise  of  weak  doubts  and  a  false  mari- 
taljealousy  can  be  dramatically  correct  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  noble  Moor. 

r3^How  we  are  to  supply  the  lack  or  explain  the 
absence  of  the  peculiar  movement,  vital  to  such 
tragedy  as  this,  whereby  the  fatal  fault  or  error  of 
the  leading  characters  is  so  extenuated  as  to  com- 
mand the  sympathy  and  fellow-feeling  of  the  spec- 
tators. 

U3 


114  THE  OTHELLO. 

V^jHow  this  play,  pre-eminently  a  study  of  sex- 
ual relations, — loveless  but  legal  with  lago  and 
Emilia,  loving  but  lawless  with  Cassio  and  Bianca, 
— can  be  regarded  as  presenting  no  complication  or 
extenuation  in  the  case  of  Othello  and  Desdemona, 
but  only  an  absolute,  unredeemed,  malodorous 
amalgamation,  with  no  other  or  different  palliation 
than  that  of  being  lawful. 

Why  of  all  places  in  his  work  should  Shakes- 
peare fail  to  palliate  the  tragic  fault  in  this 
play;  fail  to  invoke  with  his  usual  art  and 
power  an  extenuation  of  the  error  of  noble 
Othello  and  lovely  Desdemona?  What  woman 
of  delicacy  witnessing  the  "  Othello "  has  ever 
felt  that  in  Desdemona's  situation  she  too 
might  have  wedded  a  blackamoor;  what  man  of 
generous  impulse  has  thought  if  he  were  a  noble 
Moor  wedded  to  a  fair  Venetian  he  too  might  have 
given  way  to  doubt  and  been  ruined  by  false  sus- 
picion and  jealousy?  Yet  for  tragedy  these  things 
must  be. 

These  are  the  great  fundamental  problems  of  the 
play,  incapable  of  explanation  under  the  accepted 
theories,  but  absolutely  and  fully  met^  by  the  un- 
consummate  marriage  which  puts  a  yet  finer  bloom 
of  unconscious  innocence  on  the  delicacy  of  Desde- 
mona, glorifies  with  pathos  the  doubts  and  fears  of 
Othello,  and  above  all  supplies  that  development  so 
long  undiscerned  by  which  the  spectator  is  taken 
into  a  transmuting  dramatic  secret  and  brought  to 
see  the  forbidden  marriage  in  a  true,  rational,  heart- 
moving  light. 


A   CHORD   THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT.     "S 

If  such  a  redeemed  marriage  seems  impossible  at 
first,  so  much  greater  the  magic  and  spell,  so  much 
the  more  wonderful  the  tragic  movement,  which 
render  it  as  real  as  anything  in  the  piece.  To  pre- 
sent a  human  relationship  which  is  forbidding  and 
seemingly  beyond  extenuation,  and  then  to  trans- 
form it  slowly  and  grandly  into  a  redemption  which 
starts  sympathy  and  tears  is  the  very  method  of 
Shakespeare,  and  never  more  signally  displayed 
than  in  this  play. 

But  to  expect  such  a  disclosure,  otherwise  than 
by  apt  dramatic  methods,  would  be  unreasonable. 
An  absolute  announcement  of  the  conditions  which 
are  to  transform  the  marriage,  and  consequently  the 
main  action,  from  a  thing  of  disgust  to  one  of  pro- 
foundly human  interest  could  not  well  be  per- 
mitted. The  transformation  must  be  wrought 
gradually,  with  hope  rising  and  falling — never 
utterly  cast  down  and  never  fully  triumphant  until 
the  close.  Such  is  what  the  "  Othello  "  needs,  and 
such  is  what  Shakespeare  gloriously  supplied  and 
what  we  may  clearly  see  if  we  look  for  it  in  a  true 
light  and  with  undimmed  vision. 

Schlegel,  speaking  of  the  extremely  offensive  ex- 
pressions of  lago  in  the  opening  scene  which  have 
been  so  generally  expurgated  from  modern  editions, 
says  if  Shakespeare  had  written  for  the  present  day 
he  would  not  dare  to  hazard  them.  But  this  must 
certainly  have  ruined  the  truth  of  the  picture.  To 
Hudson  the  language  of  lago  is  that  of  a  spirit 
broke  loose  from  the  pit,  but  it  will  not  do  to  soften 
or  whiten  it,  for  that  takes  away  the  just  equinox 


Il6  THE   OTHELLO. 

to  virtue  which  the  author  was  determined  to  por- 
tray in  this  helHsh  villain.     To  intensify  dramatic  |. 
effect  Othello's  complexion  makes  his  marriage  totf 
Desdemona  seem  dark  in  the  eyes  of  the  specta-l 
tor,  and  lago's  language  then  blackens  it  to  the  ear.fl 
This  is  the  '*  striking  up  "  peculiar  to  Shakespeare; 
the  "  stroking  down  "  comes  later.     Early  in  the 
first    scene    Shakespeare    strikes    the   main    chord 
which  is  to  vibrate  throughout  the  play — repug- 
nance of  wedded  black  and  white.     We  are  thrown 
right  into  the  excitement  following  the  elopement 
and  marriage  of  the  beautiful  white  maiden  and  the 
blackamoor  chief,  and  as  lago  rouses  Desdemona's 
father,  a  low,  vulgar,  repulsive  picture  of  the  union 
is  forced  upon  our  offended  sense  of  decency  in 
preparation  for  a  poetic  contrast  later — language 
Adams  found  unquotable  in  plainer  speaking  times 
than  the  present : 

"  Zounds,  sir,  you're  robb'd  ;  for  shame,  put  on  your  gown ; 
Your  heart  is  burst,  you  have  lost  half  your  soul. 

Arise,  arise  ; 
Awake  the  snorting  citizens  with  the  bell, 
Or  else  the  devil  will  make  a  grandsire  of  you." 

Determined  to  shame  Brabantio  to  rage  and  vio- 
lence, lago  goes  on  with  nauseous,  foul-tongued 
reports,  dragging  the  intermarriage  down  below 
human  decency  to  the  bestial  plane: 

Zounds,  sir,  you  are  one  of  those  that  will  not  serve  God, 
if  the  devil  bid  you.  Because  we  come  to  do  you  service, 
and  you  think  we  are  ruffians,  you'll  have  your  daughter 
covered  with  a  Barbary  horse;  you'll  have  your  nephews 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS    THROUGHOUT.      HJ 

neigh  to  you  ;  you'll  have  coursers  for  cousins  and  genuets 
for  germans. 
Bra.  What  profane  wretch  art  thou? 

Roderigo  then  chimes  in  with  his  version  of  Des- 
demona's  "  gross  revolt "  in  eloping  with  a  black 
man,  and  gives  a  picturesque  but  slanderous  ac- 
count of  her  flight  from  her  father's  home : 

"  Transported,  with  no  worse  nor  better  guard 
But  with  a  knave  of  common  hire,  a  gondolier. 
To  the  gross  clasps  of  a  lascivious  Moor." 

No  wonder  the  proud  aristocratic  Brabantio  is 
agonized  by  these  vile  accounts  of  the  monstrous 
conduct  of  his  daughter.  To  him  there  is  only  one 
possible  explanation  of  her  act,  and  as  he  starts  to 
pursue  and  reclaim  her  he  cries : 

"  Is  there  not  charms 
By  which  the  property  of  youth  and  maidhood 
May  be  abused?    Have  you  not  read,  Roderigo, 
Of  some  such  thing  ?  " 

As  Brabantio  organizes  his  party  and  goes  in 
pursuit  of  Desdemona  he  can  think  of  no  way  to  ex- 
plain her  unnatural  conduct  except  by  assuming 
that  she  was  drugged.  When  he  meets  Othello  he 
breaks  out: 

••  O  thou  foul  thief,  where  hast  thou  stow'd  my  daughter? 
Damn'd  as  thou  art,  thou  hast  enchanted  her; 
For  I'll  refer  me  to  all  things  of  sense. 
If  she  in  chains  of  magic  were  not  bound, 
Whether  a  maid  so  tender,  fair,  and  happy. 
So  opposite  to  marriage  that  she  shunn'd 
The  wealthy  curled  darlings  of  our  nation, 


Il8  THE   OTHELLO. 

Would  ever  have,  to  incur  a  general  mock, 
Run  from  her  guardage  to  the  sooty  bosom 
Of  such  a  thing  as  thou,  to  fear,  not  to  delight. 
Judge  me  the  world,  if  'tis  not  gross  in  sense 
That  thou  hast  practiced  on  her  with  foul  charms; 
Abused  her  delicate  youth  with  drugs  or  minerals 
That  waken  motion:  I'll  have't  disputed  on; 
'Tis  probable,  and  palpable  to  thinking. 
I  therefore  apprehend  and  do  attach  thee 
For  an  abuser  of  the  world,  a  practicer 
Of  arts  inhibited  and  out  of  warrant." 

Othello  preserves  serene  dignity,  scorns  to  make 
a  street  scene,  and  is  evidently  confident  he  can 
vindicate  himself  at  the  proper  time  and  place  from 
all  charges  of  v^rong  toward  Desdemona,  although 
far  from  certain  that  the  marriage  is  essentially  and 
inherently  right. 

"  My  parts,  my  title,  and  my  perfect  soul 
Shall  manifest  me  rightly." 

The  marriage  is  legal;  Othello  stakes  his  honor 
as  a  soldier  upon  it,  and  expects  his  "  perfect  soul," 
or  that  pure  love  of  the  soul  which  is  perfectly  free 
from  the  body  and  its  passion,  to  be  made  plain  to 
all  the  world.  Right  here  the  poet  strikes  the  sec- 
ondary chord  which  is  to  echo  and  re-echo  to  the 
end  of  the  drama.  Physical  intermarriage  was  the 
first, — marriage  so  offensive  that  lago  made  it 
suggest  animal  progeny, — ^and  for  the  second  we 
have  just  the  opposite — a  sentiment  so  pure,  so 
delicate  that  Othello  can  call  it  a  perfect  soul  love. 

The  double-dealing  lago,  as  preternatural  in  his 
morbid  activity  of  mind  as  in  his  satanic  hardness 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT,      1 19 

of  heart,  was  hardly  done  torturing  Brabantio  with 
the  fleer  of  unnatural  love,  rendering  his  daughter 
the  victim  of  hideous  passion,  than  we  find  him  re- 
turning to  Othello  to  play  upon  him  in  the  reverse 
key.  Just  as  the  villain  struck  the  main  chord  of 
the  play  in  thrusting  before  Brabantio  a  picture  of 
his  daug'hter's  alleged  unnatural — almost  bestial — 
passion,  so  we  find  him  turning  with  strange  mental 
agility  to  excite  Othello's  doubts  of  the  marriage 
for  the  very  reason  that  it  had  stopped  short  of 
natural  completion.  Mark  his  first  question  when 
he  returns  to  Othello: 

"  Are  you  fast  married?" 

The  hinge  of  doubt  here  is  not  as  to  the  validity 
of  the  ceremony,  or  the  legality  of  the  marriage  it- 
self, for  there  is  no  question  as  to  those  points,  nor 
can  it  refer  to  any  such  accusation  as  that  afterward 
brought  by  Brabantio  of  Desdemona  having  been 
corrupted  by  the  foul  arts  of  the  Moor.  lago 
knows  all  about  the  marriage,  and  he  is  too  famil- 
iar with  the  upright  character  of  Othello  to  think 
for  a  moment  of  any  such  charge  being  proved 
against  him.  lago's  suggestion  of  a  possible  point 
of  weakness  in  the  union  of  Othello  and  Desdemona 
relates  to  an  idea  of  a  different  nature,  often  em- 
ployed by  Shakespeare  and  quickly  caught  by  his 
audiences — to  the  natural  culmination  of  marriage, 
which  in  this  instance  would  give  us  unpardonable 
offense  if  accomplished,  but  which  if  scorned  in  the 
inspirations  of  a  heavenly  love  might  give  us  cause 
for  holiest  tears.     Yet,  unaccomplished,  the  union 


I20  THE    OTHELLO. 

would  be  incomplete — exposed  to  Brabantio's  at- 
tack. Failing  to  see  how  lago  strikes  the  second- 
ary chord  here  with  Othello,  as  shortly  before  he 
touched  the  main  one  with  Brabantio,  some  writers 
have  puzzled  greatly  why  this  piece  should  differ 
from  the  other  great  tragedies  in  having  no  under- 
plot. We  shall  see  hereafter  that  solicitude  as  to 
Desdemona's  fate  in  marriage  will  echo  clear 
through  the  play  and  supply  the  secondary  chord 
which  sounds  throughout. 

It  is  not  left  for  lago  alone  to  suggest  the  double 
view  of  the  marriage;  we  find  the  keys  of  the  by- 
plot  softly  but  clearly  sounded  at  several  places  in 
the  opening  scenes.  What  else  can  be  the  sig- 
nificance of  Othello  being  so  difficult  to  find  on  this 
night  of  the  alarm  and  call  to  arms  that  three 
several  quests  were  sent  for  him  and  he  was  dis- 
covered at  last  by  accident  in  an  unexpected 
quarter?  "  What  makes  he  here?  "  was  Cassio's 
question,  and  it  shows  that  the  Moor  had  not  taken 
Desdemona  to  his  official  mansion,  specially  pro- 
vided for  the  family  of  the  commanding  general, 
and  which  would  surely  have  been  an  appropriate 
place  under  ordinary  assumptions.  But  he  has 
stow'd  her  elsewhere;  and,  parting  from  his  bride  of 
an  hour,  we  find  him  in  the  street  accompanied  by 
a  servant  with  a  torch,  as  if  betaking  himself  back 
to  his  own  chambers,  when  he  is  discovered  by  the 
messengers.  These  circumstances  may  not  mean 
much  to  us;  they  were  surely  suggestive  to  the 
audiences  of  Shakespeare's  time.  The  intimation 
certainly  was  that  Othello  was  not  "  fast  married  '* 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS    THROUGHOUT.      121 

in  the  sense  of  a  completed  union,  but  might  be 
treating  his  marriage  as  one  above  the  claims  of 
sex. 

It  can  hardly  be  thought  Othello  had  expected  to 
remain  an  hour  longer  than  was  necessary  in  the 
unknown  quarter  where  he  had  taken  Desdemona 
and  where  he  was  beyond  the  call  of  the  Senate.  It 
was  a  time  of  opening  war  and  danger,  and  Othello 
must  have  been  expecting  a  summons  any  moment 
for  the  coming  struggle  at  Cyprus.  Under  such 
circumstances  he  might  put  himself  beyond  reach 
of  messengers  from  the  Duke  and  the  Senate  possi- 
bly for  a  few  hours,  surely  not  for  an  entire  day  or 
night.  It  cannot  be  thought  he  intended  to  remain 
for  a  considerable  time  at  unknown  lodgings  with- 
out even  his  lieutenant  knowing  where  he  could  be 
found  in  case  of  emergency.  An  ill  example  that 
for  a  General  in  a  critical  time.  Instead  he  took 
"  French  leave  "  from  his  official  headquarters  only 
long  enough  to  accomplish  the  elopement  and  se- 
cret marriage,  and  then  started  back  at  once,  leav- 
ing Desdemona  behind,  for  the  reason  that  their 
union  was  not  intended  to  be  one  of  marital  inti- 
macy. The  street  meeting  with  lago  and  the  mes- 
sengers thus  becomes  a  finely  motived  incident  dis- 
playing the  care  of  the  careful  commander,  arous- 
ing interest  as  to  the  singular  marriage,  forestalling 
our  rising  sense  of  disgust,  and  making  delicate 
suggestion  of  the  exceptional  relations  prevailing 
between  Othello  and  his  platonic  bride.  Read 
without  this  meaning,  as  it  has  been  heretofore,  the 
scene  which  displays  Othello  in  the  street  an  hour 


122  THE   OTHELLO. 

after  his  marriage,  and  in  an  unknown  locality 
where  he  was  found  by  accident,  is  an  awkward  epi- 
sode not  in  keeping  with  his  character  as  a  General, 
his  situation  as  a  bridegroom,  or  any  need  of  the 
drama  at  this  stage. 

lago  seems  to  have  known  all  the  details  and  cir- 
cumstances of  the  wedding  better  than  anyone  else, 
for  he  was  first  to  raise  the  alarm  in  the  hour  after 
midnight,  and  Othello  afterward  speaks  of  him  as 
the  one  who  best  knew  where  Desdemona  could  be 
found.  As  he  was  in  the  secret  and  knew  what 
steps  had  been  taken  and  those  likely  to  come,  there 
is  special  significance  in  the  question  he  threw  at 
Othello  when  he  returned  to  find  he  had  left  Desde- 
mona and  was  apparently  returning  to  his  head- 
quarters— "  Are  you  fast  married?"  lago  here 
gives  the  lie  to  his  foul-tongued  language  in  rous- 
ing Brabantio,  and  kindles  the  first  dramatic  hope 
of  the  marriage  being  the  very  opposite  of  his  low 
picture  of  it  to  the  poor  old  father.  Then  follows 
his  artful  insinuation  of  an  incomplete  union  with 
Desdemona  being  taken  advantage  of  by  Brabantio 
to  compel  a  divorce.  lago's  true  reason  for  desiring 
completion  of  the  marriage  was  that  he  believed 
that  would  be  its  wreck,  and  Desdemona  would 
then  turn  in  disgust  from  the  Moor.  The  hint  that 
if  not  *'  fast  married  "  the  Moor  might  yet  lose  his 
bride  was  not  lost  on  Englishmen  of  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries,  as  it  is  apt  to  be  with  us. 
With  them  the  fruition  of  marriage  was  a  requisite 
so  needful  and  welcome  that  they  gave  it  special 
celebration  instead  of  veiling  it  behind  decorous 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT.      123 

assumption.  Ceremonies  of  espousal  and  of  wed- 
ding, while  customary,  might  be  dispensed  with, 
but  a  complete  relationship  was  so  necessary  to  a 
valid  marriage  that,  in  unioiio  .v^ere  it  did  not  and 
could  not  occur,  the  law  would  grant  a  sentence  of 
nullity  without  other  or  further  reason.  The  Eliza- 
bethans, despite  some  of  their  poets,  did  not  believe 
much  in  spiritual  unions;  the  twain  must  become 
one  flesh.  Even  if  a  most  perfect  wedding  cere- 
mony was  had,  the  marriage  was  voidable  if  na- 
ture's rite  could  not  and  did  not  follow. 

With  such  ideas  fixed  in  the  popular  mind,  and 
with  the  bride-song  which  celebrated  the  fruition 
of  marital  love  as  a  literary  delight  of  the  day,  the 
Elizabethan  dramatists  often  carried  their  audiences 
along  to  the  door  and  hour  of  the  nuptial  celebra- 
tion. Shakespeare  rarely  touched  this  joyous 
lighter  vein,  for  the  evil  in  the  love  of  man  and 
woman  weighed  constantly  upon  him.  But  time 
and  again  he  cast  doubt  over  a  marriage  after  a 
legal  ceremony  had  been  performed  but  while  na- 
ture's culmination  was  yet  in  waiting.  Helena, 
getting  access  by  stratagem  and  under  cover  of 
silence  and  darkness  to  her  churlish  bridegroom, 
gives  us  a  piteous  phase,  but  in  Othello  and  Des- 
demona  we  have  one  of  higher  pathos  and  beauty. 
The  culmination  sought  elsewhere  to  complete  con- 
jugal love  is  here  declined  at  the  prompting  of  an 
afifection  which  is  of  heaven,  not  the  earth.  That  is 
what  we  find  softly  but  clearly  suggested  in  the 
putting  away  of  the  bride  when  Othello  stow'd  her 
elsewhere  and,  on  the  nuptial  night,  betook  him- 


124  THE   OTHELLO. 

self  back  to  his  own  chambers.  Looking  back  over 
this  scene,  so  long  passed  as  insignificant,  we  see 
how  at  the  opening  of  the  play,  and  from  the  mouth 
of  a  single  character,  we  get  the  two  opposing  con- 
cepts of  the  marriage,  as  far  apart  '*  as  hell's  from 
heaven,"  which  start  the  action  with  all  the  material 
for  a  by  and  main  plot  of  intense  interest. 

Responding  to  the  call  of  the  messengers,  Othello 
returns  to  the  house  to  reassure  Desdemona  and 
break  the  alarm  of  w^ar  to  her  with  his  own  lips,  and 
then  proceeds  to  the  Senate,  where  he  is  to  be 
crowned  with  honor,  not  condemned  for  crime. 
Bra'bantio  renews  the  charge  against  Othello  of  cor- 
rupting the  young  maid  with  spells  or  drugs: 

"  She  is  abus'd,  stol'n  from  me,  and  corrupted 
By  spells  and  medicines  boug^ht  of  mountebanks; 
For  nature  so  preposterously  to  err, 
Being  not  deficient,  blind,  or  lame  of  sense, 
Sans  witchcraft  could  not." 

That  Desdemona  was  the  last  woman  to  wed  a 
man  of  alien  race,  if  in  her  right  mind  and  senses, 
is  the  firm  conviction  of  Brabantio  as  he  renews  his 
accusation : 

*'  A  maiden  never  bold; 
Of  spirit  so  still  and  quiet,  that  her  motion 
Blush'd  at  herself;  and  she,  in  spite  of  nature, 
Of  years,  of  country,  credit,  every  thing. 
To  fall  in  love  with  what  she  fear'd  to  look  on! 
It  is  a  judgment  maim'd  and  most  imperfect 
That  will  confess  perfection  so  could  err 
Against  all  rules  of  nature,  and  must  be  driven 
To  find  out  practices  of  cunning  hell, 
Why  this  should  be.     I  therefore  vouch  again 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT.     125 

That  with  some  mixtures  powerful  o'er  the  blood, 
Or  with  some  dram  conjured  to  this  effect, 
He  wrought  upon  her." 

Just  before  and  just  after  this  last  speech  of  Bra- 
bantio,  Othello  voices  fully  his  noble  defense,  previ- 
ously indicated  by  his  absence  in  the  street,  which 
sounds  like  deep  harmony  answering  offensive 
clamor — a  defense  which  at  once  sweetens  and  puri- 
fies the  whole  atmosphere.  Charged  with  lechery 
and  foul  arts,  he  defends  himself  and  his  bride  with 
a  simple  manly  avowal  of  the  purest  love,  the  most 
delicate  and  poetic  sympathy  and  sentiment  both  on 
his  side  and  hers.  He  had  told  her  that  lofty  tale 
of  his  battles  and  sieges,  his  hairbreadth  escapes, 
his  adventures  in  strange  lands  and  among  strange 
peoples,  and  more  especially  of  the  distressful 
strokes  of  his  youth,  which  touched  the  maiden 
heart  first  with  compassion,  next  with  heavenly 
love. 

*'  My  story  being  done, 
She  gave  me  for  my  pains  a  world  of  sighs  : 
She  swore,  in  faith,  'twas  strange,  'twas  passing  strange, 
'Twas  pitiful,  'twas  wondrous  pitiful." 

This  surely  is  a  welcome  poetic  contrast  to  the  re- 
pulsive views  of  the  marriage  announced  by  lago, 
Roderigo,  and  Brabantio;  and  a  lively  anxiety  is 
excited  in  us  to  learn  which  shall  prove  right, 
although  from  the  first  we  feel  the  truth  of  Othello's 
assertion : 

••  She  loved  me  for  the  dangers  I  had  pass'd, 

And  I  loved  her  that  she  did  pity  them. 
This  only  is  the  witchcraft  I  have  used." 


126  THE  OTHELLO. 

Desdemona  then  comes  upon  the  scene  and  con- 
firms all  Othello  has  asserted  as  to  the  voluntary 
nature  of  her  affection  and  the  lofty  plane  on  which 
it  rests.  The  artless  simplicity  of  her  plea  is 
strangely  convincing: 

*'  That  I  did  love  the  Moor  to  live  with  him, 
My  downright  violence  and  storm  of  fortunes 
May  trumpet  to  the  world:  my  heart's  subdued 
Even  to  the  very  quality  of  my  lord  : 
I  saw  Othello's  visage  in  his  mind, 
And  to  his  honors  and  his  valiant  parts 
Did  I  my  soul  and  fortunes  consecrate. 
So  that,  dear  lords,  if  I  be  left  behind, 
A  moth  of  peace,  and  he  go  to  the  war, 
The  rites  for  which  I  love  him  are  bereft  me, 
And  I  a  heavy  interim  shall  support 
By  his  dear  absence.     Let  me  go  with  him." 

Were  it  not  so  beautiful  and  touching,  the  sim- 
plicity of  Desdemona  would  be  almost  amusing. 
Her  situation  as  the  white  bride  of  a  Moor  would 
be  a  most  trying  and  embarrassing  one  for  a  woman 
of  ordinary  consciousness,  and  would  ordinarily 
compel  shamefaced  reserve  of  manner  and  suppres- 
sion of  speech.  Not  so  with  Desdemona.  With 
her,  physical  relations  are  glorified  and  spiritual- 
ized into  the  ideal.  She  assumes  the  ideal,  love-re- 
deemed nature  of  her  marriage  is  as  clear  to  others 
as  to  herself,  and,  thinking  of  being  near  her  hero, 
to  listen  to  his  voice,  feel  his  protecting  tenderness, 
and  glory  in  his  valorous  achievements,  she  yet  art- 
lessly declares  that  she  married  the  Moor  **  to  live 
with  him,"  thus  in  a  sense  seeming  to  contradict 
Othello's  lofty  professions.     And  she  goes  on  in- 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT.      1 27 

sisting  that  if  he  go  to  the  war  alone  she  will  be 
cruelly  deprived  of  the  privileges  of  a  wife. 

If  the  grave  and  reverend  signiors  had  taken 
Desdemona  literally  they  would  have  been  dis- 
gusted with  her,  but  it  is  plain  they  saw  it  was 
supreme  artless  innocence  and  spiritual  devotion 
which  made  her  speak  as  no  conscious  woman 
could  or  would  have  spoken.  With  a  charm- 
ingly idealized  feeling  as  to  the  inner  life  of 
marriage,  Desdemona  can  refer  to  it  with  a  candor 
impossible  in  a  more  conscious  or  less  supremely 
innocent  woman.  At  this  stage  Desdemona  has  no 
idea  there  can  be  any  question  a  to  the  rightfulness 
and  beauty  of  her  marriage  with  the  Moor.  At  one 
time  I  was  disposed  to  think  she  did  not  face  the 
prospect  of  consummation  until  overwhelmed  with 
sorrow,  and  in  the  hope  of  obtaining  a  vindication 
of  her  fidelity.  But  that  is  clearly  erroneous.  She 
took  her  wedding  sheets  with  her  when  she  eloped; 
she  ordered  them  put  upon  her  couch  when  she 
thought  the  bridal  debt  due.  The  most  refined  of 
all  Shakespeare's  women  (save  Miranda,  perhaps, 
and  really  equal  to  her),  Desdemona  talks  to  the 
Senate  about  living  with  Othello,  and  afterward 
gayly  declares  she  will  make  his  bed  a  school. 
Everything  being  refined  and  ennobled  with  her, 
she  thinks  it  so  with  others,  and  feels  no  need 
to  check  or  guard  her  speech.  She  goes  to  such  an 
excess  in  her  innocence  that  the  grave  signiors  must 
have  been  amused.  Had  they  taken  her  literally 
they  must  have  believed  in  the  foul  arts.  But  they 
knew  it  was  the  innocent  and  spiritualized  heart 


128  THE  OTHELLO. 

that  revealed  itself  so  freely.  Nevertheless,  it  was 
incumbent  on  Othello  to  show  that  he  did  not  in- 
tend tO'  take  advantage  of  the  absolute  and  un- 
limited devotion  of  his  fair  bride  in  going  with  him 
to  the  war. 

"  Let  her  have  your  voices. 
Vouch  with  me,  heaven,  I  therefore  beg  it  not, 
To  please  the  palate  of  my  appetite,* 
Nor  to  comply  with  heat — the  young  affects 
In  me  defunct — and  proper  satisfaction, 
But  to  be  free  and  bounteous  to  her  mind  : 
And  heaven  defend  your  good  souls,  that  you  think 
I  will  your  serious  and  great  business  scant 
For  she  is  with  me  :  no,  when  light-wing'd  toys 
Of  feather'd  Cupid  seal  with  wanton  dullness 
My  speculative  and  officed  instruments, 
That  my  disports  corrupt  and  taint  my  business, 
Let  housewives  make  a  skillet  of  my  helm, 
And  all  indign  and  base  adversities 
Make  head  against  my  estimation  !  " 

*  Johnson  paraphrases  these  lines  with  this  not  untruth- 
ful, but  weak,  washed-out  circumlocution  :  "  I  ask  it  not  to 
please  appetite  or  satisfy  loose  desires,  the  passions  of 
youth  which  I  have  outlived,  or  for  any  particular  grati- 
fication of  myself,  but  merely  that  I  may  indulge  the  wishes 
of  my  wife." 

Hudson  offers  this  paraphrase  of  the  latter    disputed 
clause:  "  Nor  to  indulge  the  passions  of  youth  (which  in 
me  have  become  extinct)  and  procure  my  own  personal 
satisfaction."      He  cites  also    the    following    from    Mas- 
singer's  ' '  Bondman  "  as  making  it  all  but  certain  this  was 
the  interpretation  accepted  in  Shakespeare's  time  : 
"  Let  me  wear 
Your  colors,  lady;  and  \.\\o\x%\\ yoitthful  heats 
That  look  no  further  than  your  outward  form 
Are  long  since  buried  in  me:  while  I  live 
I  am  a  constant  lover  of  your  mind." 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS    THROUGHOUT,      129 

This  speech  is  one  of  unending  difficulty  to  the 
editors  of  Shakespeare.  Those  who,  like  Malone 
and  White,  take  the  language  for  what  it  says,  are 
nevertheless  sorely  puzzled  why,  on  his  wedding 
day,  Othello  should  utterly  disclaim  all  impulses  of 
sex,  while  others  insist  on  recasting  the  passage  in 
order  to  give  it  the  more  reasonable  meaning  which 
they  think  it  greatly  needs.  In  my  view  of  the  play 
this  speech  falls  into  line  as  a  most  important  and 
significant  one,  to  be  read  in  its  plain  literal  mean- 
ing and  as  presenting  no  difficulty  in  sense  and  no 
serious  one  in  language. 

The  true  meaning  of  the  passage  is:  I  ask  it  not 
for  pleasure  of  appetite  (the  young  af¥ects  or  ex- 
cesses of  passion  being  now  in  me  defunct),  nor  yet 
to  supply  the  heat  and  proper  satisfaction  of  im- 
pulse at  my  time  of  life,  but  only  to  feed  bounte- 
ously and  freely  the  aflfections  and  longings  of  Des- 
demona's  mind. 

The  only  material  change  in  this  construction  is 
to  throw  the  break  in  Othello's  thought  back  half 
a  measure,  causing  the  lines  which  declare  the 
young  affects  to  be  defunct  to  give  the  rea- 
son why  the  excessive  desires  of  mere  appe- 
tite are  under  control  or  subjugation.  Shakes- 
peare did  not  follow  this  collocation:  the  re- 
quirement of  meter  was  in  the  way;  he  was 
intent  on  the  bounding  looseness  of  an  ardent  im- 
pulsive speech,  and  his  audiences  did  not  require  the 
Dutch  method  of  labeling  the  picture.  If  he  had 
written  for  an  audience  of  the  present  time,  and  had 
to  depend  on  logical  directness  rather  than  on  the 


I30  THE   OTHELLO. 

denotements  of  hymeneal  poetry  and  the  wonder- 
rousing  possibilities  of  a  blackamoor  hero,  he  would 
doubtless  have  Othello  tell  us  in  closer  sequence  of 
the  passing  of  youthful  ardor  as  a  sufficient  reason 
for  a  thorough  control  of  sexual  desire  in  middle 
life,  but  hardly  for  an  absolute  renunciation  of  the 
satisfaction  appropriate  and  proper  at  such  an  age. 
Yd:  Othello  plainly  declares  to  the  Elizabethans  a 
repudiation  of  all  desire,  even  that  which  he  thinks 
proper  ordinarily  to  one  of  his  age.  The  absence 
of  "  young  affects  "  explains  why  he  is  superior  to 
excesses  of  passion:  as  to  why  he  rises  above  the 
measure  of  desire  allowable  at  his  time  of  life  he 
oflfers  a  vastly  higher,  better  reason — ^the  glorious 
duty  of  being  free  and  bounteous  to  Desdemona's 
mind.  Brought  by  my  theory  of  the  play  to  this 
construction  of  this  speech,  I  cannot  but  re- 
gard it  as  a  sad  error  in  such  interpreters 
as  Johnson  and  Hudson  to  think  the  noble  Moor 
would  ground  his  promise  of  just  treatment 
of  his  heavenly  Desdemona  on  the  flagging 
or  fading  of  the  baser  impulse  in  himself. 
Never  could  he  bring  himself  to  do  that.  The 
abrupt,  purposely  misplaced  break  in  his  language 
and  thought  is  nobly  significant.  As  he  starts  out 
in  his  appeal  to  the  senators  he  offers  the  modera- 
tion of  years  as  one  reason  why  they  may  credit 
him, — tenders  it  for  what  it  is  worth  as  explaining 
his  extraordinary  position, — but  is  swept  impul- 
sively by  the  ardor  and  loftiness  of  his  spirit  into  an 
absolute  disclaimer  even  of  such   "  proper  satis- 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT.      13 1 

faction  "  *  as  might  be  thought  rightful  in  a  man  of 
his  years,  vowing  that  he  desired  Desdemona  for  no 
selfish  or  sensuous  purpose  whatever,  but  solely  for 
the  exalted  one  of  being  free  and  bounteous  to  her 
exalted  mind. 

It  is  a  narrow,  unworthy  criticism  which  regards 
Othello  as  disavowing  sensuous  desire  for  Desde- 
mona only  for  the  reason  and  to  the  extent  that  ad- 
vancing years  may  aid  him  in  moderation.  Those 
who  incline  naturally  to  that  view,  and  who  are 
disposed  also  to  think  the  Moor  might  be  free  and 
bounteous  to  Desdemona's  mind  while  carrying  her 
into  the  consummation  of  such  a  marriage  as  this, 
may  as  well  forego  all  hope  of  understanding  this 
play,  and  content  themselves  with  the  dry  bones  so 
long  offered  them  by  literalist  commentators  whose 
imaginations  are  dead  within  them.  It  is  true 
Othello  speaks  of  the  impulse  of  sex  as  ungovern- 
able in  men  when  young  affects  or  youthful  de- 
sires hold  sway,  and  as  one  which  in  middle  life, 
when  the  early  fever  is  abated,  should  be  held  down 
to  a  reasonable  or  proper  satisfaction;  but  he — a 
man  of  perhaps  forty-five — absolutely  renounces 
even  that.  Such  is  the  only  consistent  interpreta- 
tion of  his  language,   the  only  possible  conduct 

*  Miranda,  in  the  "  Knight  of  Malta"  pledges  "  a  chaste 
life  "  and  "  not  to  enjoy  anything  proper  to  myself." 
Gomera,  an  older  man  than  Othello,  says  he  will  not  fare 
like  other  husbands  or  resume  "  the  order  and  habits  that 
to  men  are  necessary.'*  Voletto  calls  this  willful  murder  ; 
but  Gomera  believed  his  wife  dead,  and  was  contemplating 
a  widower's  abstinence. 


132  THE    OTHELLO. 

squaring  with  his  situation  and  his  character  as  a 
lofty  Moor  vested  with  the  love  of  a  tender,  inno- 
cent, love-blinded  Venetian  maid — not  simply 
moderation,  but  absolute  denial;  the  chivalrous 
courtesy  and  reserve  that  should  enable  him  to  re- 
tain undimmed  the  reverential  affection  of  the 
devoted  bride  who  mistakenly  pressed  forward  in 
her  innocence  and  devotion  to  consummate  her 
color-crossed  marriage,  but  never  could  have  ac- 
complished it  without  ruin  to  her  delicacy.  It  was 
for  the  glorious  Othello  to  save  her  from  herself. 

That  the  noble  Moor,  from  his  standpoint,  could 
be  free  and  bounteous  to  the  pure  and  delicate  mind 
of  Desdemona  while  inflicting  an  abuse  upon  her 
innocence  and  exposing  her  to  a  wrong  maternity 
is  a  proposition  in  itself  contradictory  and  absurd. 
Such  action  might  fit  dramatically  the  foul  and 
wicked  A'aron,  might  in  such  a  case  have  true 
dramatic  force  however  abhorrent  morally,  but  in 
Othello  it  would  be  an  utter  falsity  and  would  ruin 
the  outlines  of  a  noble  character,  and  yet,  the  mar- 
riage being  lawful,  would  fail  of  dramatic  diabolism. 
It  cannot  be.  Nor  is  it  within  reason  to  believe 
that  Othello  could  intend  the  senators  to  under- 
stand that  he  pledged  himself  merely  to  be  tem- 
perate and  moderate  in  a  legalized  life  of  amalga- 
mation— a  hateful  thing  suggestive  of  danger  and 
demoralization  when  indulged  to  any  extent,  even 
the  slightest — and  yet  thought  it  necessary  to  de- 
clare himself  solemnly  against  any  light-winged 
toys  of  feathered  Cupid,  which  at  most  could  be  ob- 
jected to  only  as  tending  perhaps  in  the  direction 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT.      133 

of  the  amorous.     Rejecting  and  disclaiming  such 
trifles  while   admitting   actual   wrong — incredible! 
Nor  can  we  believe  Shakespeare  would  have  per- 
mitted lago's  foul  characterization  of  the  marriage 
if  he  expected  to  put  in  contrast  only  a  modified, 
washed-out,  reduced  example  of  the  sort,  or  indeed 
anything  less  than  a  complete  and  glorious  recoil. 
Desdemona  strangely  broke  in  once  before  upon 
Othello's  declarations  to  the  Senate  with  a  seeming 
.  contradiction,  and  now  she  does  it  again,  but  in 
both  instances  the  effect  is  to  demonstrate  at  once 
the  devotion  of  her  love  and  her  surpassing  inno- 
cence.    She  has  not  the  slightest  comprehension 
of  the  real  ground  of  objection  to  her  marriage; 
does   not   perceive   that   the   senators   have   been 
gravely  considering  the  danger  of  the  commanding 
General  being  lost  in  the  transports  of  base  passion 
with    her    and    of    the    loss    of    her    ideals    in 
gross  disenchantment.     Having  no  such  thought 
herself  she  does  not  suspect  it  in  others.     She  has 
no  conception  of  the  reason  Othello  has  for  being 
so  ready  to  leave  her  behind  and  go  to  the  war  at 
once.     So,  in  her  artless  innocence,  she  breaks  in 
with  avowals  which  contradict  all  that  Othello  had 
claimed.     Artlessly  innocent,  and  not  realizing  how 
race  contrast  made  this   marriage  a  thing  apart, 
Desdemona  had  spoken  of  going  with  the  Moor  to 
"  live  with  him,"  and  she  now  protests  against  sepa- 
ration as  if  there  could  be  no  objection  to  the  mar- 
riage being  carried  to  fruition  and  it  could  be  glori- 
fied by  love  like  any  other.     The  senators  know  no 
conscious  woman  could  speak  in  that  manner,  and 


134  THE  OTHELLO. 

Desdemona's  charming  candor  in  talking  of  life  with 
Othello  and  separation  from  him  precisely  as  if  he 
were  white  is  a  complete  refutation  of  the  charges 
against  the  Moor  of  influencing  her  by  foul  arts 
and  proof  that  he  really  desires  her,  not  to  "  please 
the  palate  of  appetite,"  but  to  "  be  free  and 
bounteous  to  her  mind."  Most  fitting  was  it  that 
protests  against  separation  should  come  from  inno- 
cent, artless  Desdemona,  while  Othello  should  show 
only  eagerness  to  depart. 

After  Desdemona  breaks  in  upon  his  argument 
and  his  promises  in  this  manner,  Othello  con- 
formed his  plan  to  hers  so  far  as  to  grant  her  re- 
quest to  go  to  the  war,  but  not  without  making  a 
most  solemn  pledge  to  the  senators  that  if  Desde- 
mona went  with  him  no  disports  with  her  should 
interfere  with  his  performance  of  soldierly  duty. 
He  uses  extraordinary  emphasis  here  and  calls 
Heaven  to  witness  the  truth  of  his  declaration. 
Not  content  to  rest  the  entire  matter  on  his  prom- 
ise, he  argues  that  his  age  and  the  subsidence  of 
youthful  passion  make  it  possible  for  him  to  ex- 
ecute and  maintain  his  pledge  as  a  younger  man 
might  not  be  able  to  do.  We  can  see  the  amused, 
half-suppressed  smile  on  the  faces  of  the  senators 
ait  the  unconscious  innocence  of  Desdemona,  as  well 
as  the  expression  of  their  confidence  that  Othello 
would  ever  keep  her  as  she  was — a  "  maiden  wife." 
Only  when  so  satisfied  would  they  have  consented 
that  the  daughter  of  a  brother  senator  should  be 
taken  to  the  front  with  the  Moor.  To  no  men 
could  intermarriage  be  more  hideous  on  general 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT.      135 

principles,  and  especially  as  concerning  a  woman 
in  their  own  circle  and  a  General  whom  they  had  in- 
trusted with  a  critical  command.  The  critics  have 
sadly  failed  to  see  why  this  speech  should  stand 
with  its  plain  simple  meaning  unobscured  and  un- 
modified. There  was  abundant  reason  in  Othello's 
case  why  he  should  make  just  the  avowal  he  did 
upon  his  wedding  day;  and  it  is  equally  clear  D^«-^ 
demona's  speeches,  instead  of  being  excised  for  in- 
delicacy, should  be  carefully  retained  as  evidences 
of  the  purity  and  artless  innocence  of  her  nature. 

Unchecked  and  unadmonished  by  the  plain  terms 
of  Othello's  speech,  which  she  evidently  did  not  or 
could  not  fully  understand,  Desdemona  failed  to 
perceive  there  was  any  reason  or  motive  of  mod- 
esty even  to  guard  her  speech ;  hence  she  bursts  into 
the  protest  '*  To-night,  my  lord!  " — an  exclamation 
so  extreme  in  maidenly  innocence  that  the  critics 
have  thought  it  crosses  the  line  where  extremes 
meet,  and  careful  editors  have  dutifully  excised  it  as 
an  indelicate  protest  against  delaying  the  consum- 
mation of  her  marriage.  The  speeches  which 
above  all  others  attest  the  superlative  innocence  of 
Desdemona  generally  excised  as  indelicate! 

Realizing  that  any  affection  between  the  Moor 
and  a  Venetian  woman  must  be 

"  Ne'er  settled  equally,  but  high  or  low," 

Othello's  approved  good  masters  must  have  felt 
well  satisfied  before  they  gave  him  command  and 
allowed  Desdemona  to  go  with  him.  Appreciating 
the  vindication  won  from  the  Senate,  Othello,  an 


136  THE   OTHELLO, 

experienced  general,  knowing  the  dangers  of  mili- 
tary rivalries  and  intrigues,  of  disputed  conduct  and 
unprovable  defenses  or  assertions,  would  naturally 
desire  to  guard  himself  as  best  he  could  with  evi- 
dence to  show  in  the  future  he  was  worthy  such 
confidence.  Mark  how  he  does  it.  Accepting  the 
order  to  depart  at  once  for  Cyprus,  he  immediately 
announces  his  decision  that  Desdemona  shall  fol- 
low in  a  sepafate'^Wfr.  ^ 

"  So  please  your  grace,  my  ancient; 
A  man  he  is  of  honesty  and  trust: 
To  his  conveyance  I  assign  my  wife, 
With  what  else  needful  your  good  grace  shall  think 
To  be  sent  after  me." 

Careful  not  to  leave  Othello  alone  with  Desde- 
mona an  hour  after  the  marriage,  the  dramatist  first 
showed  him  in  the  street  with  lago,  then  called  him 
quickly  to  the  Senate,  and  is  now  hurrying  him  off 
to  sea  with  nuptials  uncelebrated.  Mark  too  the 
device  of  separate  ships,  a  complete  reversal  of 
Cinthio,  where  Othello  and  Desdemona  sail  on 
the  same  vessel.  Such  are  the  preparations  for  the 
full  disclosure  of  non-marital  relations  to  come  later 
on. 

But  Othello  does  not  stop  with  arrangements  for 
Desdemona  to  come  after  in  another  vessel.  He 
selects  Emilia  to  be  a  companion  to  her  in  the  life 
to  which  she  is  proceeding. 

"  Honest  lago, 
My  Desdemona  must  I  leave  to  thee: 
1  prithee,  let  thy  wife  attend  on  her: 
And  bring  them  after  in  the  best  advantage." 


A   CHORD   THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT,     137 

About  the  last  thing  to  be  expected  of  Othello, 
this  man  of  broils  and  battles,  would  be  to  select  a 
maid  for  Desdemona.  She  could  surely  do  that 
better  herself.  But  Emilia  is  not  a  mere  waiting- 
woman.  Her  husband  is  an  officer  of  considerable 
rank — one  who  had  aspired  to  be  lieutenant  to  the 
General,  and  his  wife  would  hardly  take  the  position 
of  a  mere  servant.  Desdemona  might  have  had 
other  attendants  of  her  own  selection;  the  one 
chosen  by  Othello  was  intended,  while  having  the 
intimacy  and  close  association  of  a  maid,  to  be  a 
companion  as  well. 

Reputation  meant  much  to  Othello.  The  Duke 
declared  Montano  a  competent  commander,  but 
that  popular  opinion,  "  a  sovereign  mistress 
of  eflfects,"  preferred  Othello  as  a  safer  man. 
Evidently  the  Moor  could  no  more  afford  the 
loss  of  public  confidence  himself  than  he  could  en- 
dure the  suspicion  of  putting  a  stain  upon  his  bride. 

The  scene  before  the  Senate  has  never  received 
adequate  analysis.  Brabantio  naturally  thought  his 
brothers  in  that  body  would  punish  the  abductor  of 
his  daughter  with  special  severity,  as  the  wrong  was 
against  one  of  their  own  number.  The  Duke 
promptly  declared  that  the  villain  who  had  stolen 
Desdemona  should  receive  the  letter  of  the  law, 
even  though  it  were  his  own  son.  Naturally  the 
personal  indignation  of  the  senators  should  have 
waxed  still  warmer  when  they  found  the  offender 
was  Othello — a  man  who  had  received  great  favor 
from  the  Senate  and  now  appeared  before  it  in  the 
light  of  an  ingrate.     Instead,  however,  at  the  men- 


138  THE   OTHELLO. 

tion  of  Othello  injured  senatorial  pride  is  forgotten 
and  the  reverend  signiors  display  only  profound  re- 
gret, exclaiming  with  one  voice: 

**  We  are  very  sorry  for  't." 

This  is  a  sudden  change,  but  one  Shakespeare  in- 
tended to  be  emphatic.  Properly  rendered  on  the 
stage,  this  simultaneous  outburst  of  the  assembled 
consuls  is  one  of  the  impressive  features  of  the 
play.  What  is  the  meaning  of  this  unexpected 
and  striking  turn?  "  We  are  very  sorry  for 
't."  That  sudden  involuntary  exclamation  from 
the  entire  Senate  was  not  prompted  by  mere 
personal  concern  for  Othello,  but  meant  that 
the  senators  had  taken  alarm  lest  circumstances 
were  suddenly  proving  him  not  a  fit  man  for 
the  defense  of  Cyprus,  which  was  the  emer- 
gency then  weighing  heavily  upon  them  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  private  and  individual  affairs.  If  a  man 
of  Othello's  high  personal  and  professional  char- 
acter, of  his  elevated  sense  of  honor,  professed  faith 
as  a  Christian,  and  previous  noble  self-control  had 
suddenly  descended  to  foul  and  licentious  abuse  ot 
a  senator's  daughter,  it  would  seem  almost  inevita- 
ble that  he  was  so  changed,  demoralized,  and  de- 
graded as  to  be  unfit  for  military  trust  at  a  critical 
time. 

It  was  not  the  love  potions  that  made  the  senators 
cry  out  together  in  anxiety.  Charges  of  that  kind 
against  capable  soldiers  who  were  urgently  needed 
for  the  defense  of  Cyprus  would  be  quickly  whistled 
down  the  wind.  Imagine  the  Senate  detaining 
Cassio  for  instance  on  such  a  charge  at  such  a  time. 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT.      139 

Why  then  was  it  different  with  Othello?  Simply 
because  his  age,  race,  and  established  reputation 
were  such  that  no  one  could  think  of  him  as  a  prac- 
ticer  of  unwarranted  arts  without  dark  suspicions 
of  the  utter  demoralization  of  the  whole  man.  The 
senators  must  have  thought  then,  as  Lodovico  said 
later: 

"  Is  this  the  noble  Moor  whom  our  full  senate 
Call  all  in  all  sufficient?    Is  this  the  nature 
Whom  passion  could  not  shake?  whose  solid  virtue 
The  shot  of  accident  nor  dart  of  chance 
Could  neither  graze  nor  pierce?  " 

It  was  no  charge  of  love  potions  that  troubled  the 
Senate.  To  suppose,  as  it  has  been  so  long  sup- 
posed, that  the  Senate,  at  a  time  of  public  danger, 
was  engaged  in  trying  its  ablest  General  on  a  charge 
of  love  philters  is  absurd  to  a  degree.  Shakes- 
peare is  not  responsible  for  such  occultation.  The 
real  question  troubling  the  Senate  was  that  of 
Othello's  fitness  to  command,  although — fortu- 
nately for  dramatic  effect — the  poet  is  able  to  keep 
that  momentous  affair  of  state  interlaced  with  the 
softer,  more  affecting  charge  of  wrong  to  Desde- 
mona,  so  that  in  investigating  and  deciding  the  one, 
the  Senate  necessarily  investigates  and  decides  the 
other.  In  other  soldiers'  loves,  powders  and  even 
plainer  wrongs  might  be  passed  as  not  affecting 
military  efficiency.  But  with  "  the  noble  Moor  "  it 
was  altogether  different.  With  him  the  charge 
suggested  such  change  and  demoralization — such 
a  fall  from  previous  high  repute — as  to  make  him 
unfit  for  command.    Professionally  unfit.    He  him- 


140  THE  OTHELLO. 

self  did  not  assume  or  ask  that  conduct  in  any 
degree  like  that  winked  at  in  his  lieutenant  should 
be  excused  in  him.  Rather  did  he  think  in  his  case 
love  potions  and  lechery  would  deserve  not  only 
removal  from  command,  but  death. 

"  If  you  do  find  me  foul  in  her  report, 
The  trust,  the  office.  I  do  hold  of  you, 
Not  only  take  away,  but  let  your  sentence 
Even  fall  upon  my  life." 

The  Senate  had  reason  for  anxiety.  On  its  face 
the  marriage,  if  legally  regular,  was  naturally 
wrong,  unworthy  the  Othello  '*  that  wert  once  so 
good."  In  Shakespeare's  time,  even  more  gen- 
erally than  now,  was  it  believed  beautiful  white 
women  could  excite  the  most  destructive  and  de- 
moralizing desires  in  black  men.  Never  could  the 
Senate  place  faith  in  a  commanding  general  like 
Othello — a  Moor — lost  in  the  early  transports  of  a 
vn'salliance  with  a  fair  Venetian.  The  liaisons  it 
winked  at  were  those  safely  inside  lines  of  race. 
What  was  feared  with  Othello  was  the  uncontrolled 
and  uncontrollable  passion  of  a  black  warrior  fallen 
from  high  self-control  and  freshly  involved  with  a 
woman  of  superior  race.  Yet  the  Senate  could 
trust  Othello  if  the  black  captain  had  not  sunk  to 
base  passion,  but,  with  a  heart  chivalrous  and 
knightly  as  ever,  had  entered  wedlock  only  to 
make  an  idealized  white  bride  the  goddess  of  his 
idolatry.  The  issue  was  an  anxious  one.  The  test 
question  was  propounded  to  Othello  when  he  was 
asked  whether  his  relations  with  Desdemona  took 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS    THROUGHOUT,      141 

their  rise  in  improperly  excited  passion  or  were 
such  as  "  soul  to  soul  affordeth."  Othello's  solemn 
appeals  to  Heaven  show  how  grave  he  thought  the 
question.  Rude  in  speech,  he  rose  now  to  noble 
eloquence.  The  senators  looked  into  Othello's 
brave,  manly  face ;  they  listened  with  delight  to  his 
wondrous  story,  and  on  their  souls  they  could  not 
doubt  his  lofty  tale.  Convinced  by  Othello's  ideal 
story  of  an  ideal  love,  the  Duke  exclaimed: 

"  I  think  this  tale  would  win  my  daughter  too." 

And  the  Duke  hastens  to  assure  Brabantio  his 
son-in-law,  tested  by  the  heart  and  the  mind,  "  is 
far  more  fair  than  black."  ''Adieu,  brave  Moor! 
use  Desdemona  well  "  is  another  hearty  expression 
of  confidence  and  admiration.  Othello's  vindica- 
tion is  complete.  He  retains  his  command,  and 
he  not  only  gets  Desdemona,  but  has  permission  to 
take  her  with  him  to  the  war. 

Othello  realized  after  his  vindication  by  the 
Senate  that  he  was  in  a  position  not  only  to  display 
the  quality  of  his  discipline  and  self-restraint  toward 
Desdemona,  but  to  fortify  himself  by  having  com- 
petent proof  of  his  conduct  at  command.  Bra- 
bantio had  predicted  that,  in  consequence  of  her 
marriage  to  Othello,  Desdemona  would  become  *'  a 
general  mock  " — ^something  most  agonizing  to  the 
high-souled  Moor,  keenly  alive  both  to  the  realities 
and  the  appearances  of  honor.  To  guard  and  save 
his  angel  was  not  enough :  the  noble  truth  must  be 
apparent  to  the  world.  In  no  way  could  he  make 
such  proof  better  than  to  have  a  female  companion 


142  THE   OTHELLO. 

in  such  close  and  constant  attendance  on  Desde- 
mona  that  she  could  of  her  own  knowledge  refute 
any  suspicion  of  marital  intimacy,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  coarse  excesses  predicted  of  him  as  "  a  las- 
'civious  Moor."  In  no  other  way  could  he  so  well 
save  Desdemona  from  Brabantio's  prediction  as  by 
demonstrating  his  *'  perfect  soul  " ;  that  is,  by  prov- 
ing his  love  for  Desdemona  purely  and  perfectly 
that  of  the  soul,  without  a  trace  of  desire  for  her 
body.  Precisely  such  a  love  does  Othello  assert  his 
to  be.  Before  the  nuptial  night,  before  there  was 
a  chance  of  physical  completion,  he  speaks  of  his 
love  having  reached  the  highest  possible  point  of 
gratification — almost  "  too  much  of  joy,"  and  with 
nothing  further  to  be  imagined. 

"  My  soul  hath  her  content  so  absolute, 
That  not  another  comfort  like  to  this 
Succeeds  in  unknown  fate." 

If  it  be  thought,  in  dwelling  on  Othello's  fear  that 
his  interracial  marriage  might  cost  Desdemona  loss 
of  social  esteem,  as  also  in  emphasizing  the  precau- 
tions he  took  to  provide  proof  of  his  real  relations 
with  her,  that  I  have  overlaid  a  few  brief  speeches 
with  an  excess  of  comment  and  conclusion,  the  ex- 
planation is  simple.  Shakespeare's  plays  were  in- 
tended for  the  stage, — to  have  the  meaning  devel- 
oped through  the  actor's  art, — and  the  reader  who 
depends  on  the  unaided  text  will  often  fall  far  short 
of  the  meaning.  The  actor  can  make  much  in  a 
moment  of  a  few  lines  which  the  commentator  may 
need  pages  to  explain.     A  capable  actor,  preserving 


A    CHORD   THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT.      1 43 

Othello's  grand  dignity,  would  show  by  attitude  and 
action  how  he  recoiled  from  the  foul  charges  of 
Brabantio.  Later,  by  action  when  the  Duke  spoke 
of  popular  confidence  in  him,  he  would  display 
Othello's  solicitude  for  good  report.  So  by  appro- 
priate action,  re-enforcing  the  ever-visible  problem 
of  the  black  face,  he  would  make  us  see  that  in  ap- 
pointing Emilia  as  waiting-woman  he  intended  to 
provide  the  witness  and  the  proof  to  save  Desde- 
mona  from  social  mock  or  fleer  as  a  woman  debased 
in  unnatural  marriage.  These  strokes  could  be 
quickly  executed  on  the  stage,  but  a  commentator 
must  slowly  educe  them.  So  it  is  with  the  funda- 
mental idea  of  this  play — race  difference.  On  the 
stage  the  contrast  of  the  black  husband  and  white 
wife  is  painfully  clear  up  to  the  last,  but  the  reader 
is  apt  to  lose  sight  of  it,  and  frequent  reminders  may 
be  needed  to  give  it  due  importance.  That  Shakes- 
peare wrote  for  the  stage,  not  for  readers,  is  the 
source  of  many  of  the  worst  perversions  he  has  suf- 
fered from  editors  who  cling  too  exclusively  to  the 
text. 

Othello's  care  met  with  marked  success.  Quite 
soon  indeed  did  his  perfect  soul-love  begin  to 
"  manifest  him  rightly."  While  Brabantio  believed 
Desdemona  would  become  a  subject  of  general 
odium  immediately  after  her  marriage,  we  see  the 
contrary  opinion  taking  root  as  the  true  nature  of 
the  union  is  developed  by  the  voluntary  separation 
of  the  pair  on  the  trip  and  by  Emilia's  constant 
attendance.  This  is  strikingly  shown  in  the  con- 
duct of  Cassio.    A  decided  type  of  the  gay  Lothario^ 


144  THE   OTHELLO. 

he  greets  Desdemona  on  her  arrival  at  Cyprus  with 
profound  reverence: 

"  Hail  to  thee,  lady!  and  the  grace  of  heaven, 
Before,  behind  thee,  and  on  every  hand, 
Enwheel  thee  'round! " 

As  if  to  emphasize  by  contrast  his  deep  respect 
for  Desdemona,  Cassio,  bold  gallant  that  he  is, 
turns  at  once  to  Emilia,  and  with  characteristic  as- 
surance greets  her  by  kissing  her.  Yet  it  has  been 
assumed  that  this  seasoned  man  of  the  world  and 
soldier  displays  deep  veneration  for  Desdemona  as 
a  woman  guilty  of  miscegenation!  Never  would  he 
do  that.  Only  stainless  delicacy  and  purity  could 
command  his  respect.  The  marriage  compels  Cas- 
sio's  reverence  from  the  first;  there  was  danger,  in- 
deed, that  his  attitude  should  lull  the  playgoer  into 
a  perfect  confidence  that  all  was  well  with  Desde- 
mona and  destroy  a  desirable  dramatic  suspense. 
Hence  two  countervailing  strokes  are  thrown  in 
here  to  arouse  anxiety  and  renew  in  us  some  uncer- 
tainty and  agitation — the  nuptial  celebration  and 
the  morning  serenade.  Both  these  events  would  be 
caught  at  once  in  the  days  of  the  old  nuptial  poetry 
and  bridal  customs;  but  the  intelligent  Elizabethan 
spectator  saw  they  were  peculiarly  clouded  in  this 
instance,  and  his  curiosity  and  interest  were  highly 
excited. 

Othello  had  declared  his  non-hymeneal  pur- 
pose; and  his  avowal  of  desiring  Desdemona 
only  for  the  mental  or  spiritual  intimacies  of  mar- 
riage seemed  confirmed  by  his  absence  from  her  at 


A   CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT.     145 

midnight  on  the  night  of  the  wedding,  followed  by 
the  immediate  separation  and  journey  to  Cyprus  in 
separate  ships.  There  would  remain  a  strong  doubt 
whether  the  Moor  could  keep  his  pledge  after  Des- 
demona  rejoined  him  and  he  was  released  from  the 
strain  of  war.  Moreover,  it  was  clear  from  Desde- 
mona's  wonderfully  open  and  candid  declaration  of 
marrying  the  Moor  to  live  with  him  that  she  ex- 
pected the  marriage  to  take  the  usual  course,  be- 
lieving in  her  simplicity  it  could  do  so,  without 
injury  to  her  delicacy,  and  as  an  expression  of 
wifely  devotion  and  consecration,  precisely  as  if 
Othello  were  white.  This  disposition  on  her  part, 
together  with  the  arrival  of  the  end  of  the  war  and 
the  announcement  of  the  general  revelry  and  the 
nuptial  celebration,  imply  that  the  Moor  is  soon  to 
be  put  to  a  severe  test.  Othello  gave  the  order  fo: 
the  jubilee  over  the  return  of  peace,  but  it  seems 
not  that  for  the  nuptial  celebration,  which,  it  may 
be,  the  herald  included  in  the  announcement  of  his 
own  motion.  Thus  the  nuptial  observance  does 
not  stand  by  itself  or  as  a  chief  event,  but,  contrary 
to  custom,  is  made  a  mere  incident  of  another  and 
larger  celebration,  and  that,  too,  without  any  ex- 
press direction  from  Othello.  So,  too,  the  serenade 
which  follows  next  morning  may  or  may  not  have 
the  full  significance  of  the  dawn-song.  1/  is  led  by 
Cassio,  and  we  can  hardly  conceive  of  him  celebrat- 
ing an  actual  malodorous  marriage  of  black  and 
white  in  this  way,  especially  as  he  had  persistently 
regarded  the  union  only  from  the  poetic  side  there- 
tofore.    Still,  enough  is  thrown  in  to  arouse  solici- 


146  THE  OTHELLO. 

tude    for    Desdemona    and    keep    the    underplot 
moving. 

As  Othello  is  ordering  the  guard  posted  for  the 
night,  that  joy  may  not  outsport  discretion,  there 
occurs  the  speech  which,  suffering  more  than  any 
other  from  expurgation  and  misinterpretation,  has 
involved  the  general  plot: 

♦'  Michael,  good-night:  to-morrow  with  your  earliest 
Let  me  have  speech  with  you.     \To  Des.]  Come,   my 

dear  love, 
The  purchase  made,  the  fruits  are  to  ensue; 
That  profit's  yet  to  come  'tween  me  and  you. 
Good-night." 

Does  this  good-night  speech — generally  excised 
as  an  indelicate  forecast  of  immediate  consumma- 
tion— really  warrant  the  conclusion  that  Othello's 
lofty  purposes  and  pledges  are  abandoned  without 
an  attempt  to  keep  them?  Does  the  dramatist  in- 
tend at  this  early  stage  in  the  weaving  of  his  plot 
to  sully  irretrievably  the  delicacy  of  Desdemona  and 
destroy  our  suspense  over  her  fate  in  marriage — a 
suspense  that  could  be  kept  in  telling  dramatic 
agitation  to  the  close — together  with  a  glorious  op- 
portunity to  transform  gradually  a  base  thing  into 
one  of  grandeur?  Never  can  such  blundering  be 
proved  against  Shakespeare. 

To  the  old  playgoer,  comprehending  Othello's 
promise  that  his  marriage  was  not  intended  for 
consummation,  the  pausing  of  the  Moor  at  the  door 
of  the  nuptial  chamber  must  have  been  a  nervous 
moment.     But  Othello  himself  reassured  him,  and 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT,      147 

with   a  quick   Shakespearean   stroke   transformed 
anxiety  into  relief  and  hope. 

"  Before  the  curing  of  a  strong  disease. 
Even  in  the  instant  of  repair  and  health, 
The  fit  is  strongest." 

So  with  a  suddenness  we  feel  but  hardly  can  un- 
derstand we  are  made  to  perceive  that  when 
Othello  spoke  of  the  rightfulness  and  fitness  of  a 
consummation  on  the  nuptial  night,  he  was  not 
casting  about,  as  we  feared,  for  some  palliating  ex- 
cuse for  himself;  he  was  instead  generously  and 
considerately  conceding  to  Desdemona  that  her 
modest  desire  to  consecrate  herself  in  marriage  was 
right  in  spirit  and  motive,  even  though  to  be  denied 
for  other  reasons.  We  must  never  forget  that  this 
play  was  written  at  a  time  when  the  epithalamium 
of  the  Greeks  and  Latins  was  in  the  first  flush  of  its 
early  and  transient  popularity  in  English  verse,  and 
coexisted  with  certain  daring  old  British  customs 
pertaining  to  the  bridal  occasion.  Audiences  of 
that  time  were  quick  to  perceive  nuptial  allusions 
or  suggestions  where  those  of  later  times  see 
nothing  of  the  kind.  It  needs,  however,  no  knowl- 
edge of  the  old  hymeneal  poetry  or  custom  to  catch 
the  meaning  of  arrested  marriage  in  such  bridal 
scenes  as  those  in  the  "  Albovine "  of  Sir 
William  Davenant  or  in  the  "  Maid's  Tragedy  " 
of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher;  not  until  we  come 
to  Shakespeare  do  we  find  the  colors  so  deli- 
cate that  time  has  obscured  them,  and  the 
light     of    the     hymenean     of     the     Elizabethans 


14^  THE   OTHELLO. 

must  be  revived  to  perceive  the  significance  of 
a  seemingly  slight  deflection  in  a  nuptial  celebra- 
tion. In  '*  Romeo  and  Juliet "  Shakespeare  uses 
epithalamic  suggestion  with  more  directness  than 
in  the  **  Othello,"  and  it  may  be  well  to  compare  his 
work  there  with  the  suggestions  which  lay  before 
him  in  the  sources  of  his  plot  and  also  with  the 
strongly  contrasting  scene  of  Othello's  nuptials. 

After  the  long-drawn-out  description  of  the  rap- 
tures of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  Brooke,  in  the  early 
poem,  conducts  them  to  the  bridal  chamber  and  in- 
dicates the  culmination  of  the  marriage  with  a 
directness  quite  unnecessary,  but  with  a  detail 
which  discloses  the  prevailing  view  of  wedlock  as 
accomplished  by  nature's  rite,  not  by  a  form  or  cere- 
mony. Shakespeare  offers  the  same  teaching,  but 
expresses  it  with  greater  delicacy.  He  does  not 
take  us  to  the  nuptial  chamber;  he  intimates  his 
meaning  in  the  coarse  clatter  of  the  nurse,  redden- 
ing Juliet's  cheeks,  and  in  the  young  wife's  invoca- 
tion to  the  night  as  she  sings  her  own  epithala- 
mium.  The  second  balcony  scene  is  a  more  spe- 
cific yet  more  delicate  stroke  borrowed  from  the 
dawn-song  of  hymeneal  poetry. 

Audiences  familiar  with  nuptial  poetry  knew  it 
was  not  the  troth-plight  bride,  not  the  formally 
wedded  one  merely,  but  the  actual  wife  who  tried 
to  hear  the  lark  and  not  the  nightingale  at  dawn; 
they  felt  the  full  sorrow  in  the  sundering  of  the  per- 
fected union  of  husband  and  wife.  Some  modern 
readers  have  missed  this  in  "  Romeo  and  Juliet  " 
because  of  the  delicacy  of  the  suggestion,  but  in 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT.      149 

the  **  Othello,"  where  the  coloring  is  more  deli- 
cate still  and  the  indication  is  of  arrested,  and  not 
completed,  marriage,  the  beautiful  implication  has 
remained  unseen  by  all  since  the  passing  of  the 
old  hymeneal  poetry.  But  the  true  meaning  oi  the 
nuptial  strokes  is  far  more  needful  to  a  proper  un- 
derstanding of  the  "  Othello  "  than  of  the  earlier 
tragedy.  The  necessary  assumption  is  natural  and 
easy  with  "  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  but  the  integrity  of 
the  "  Othello  "  demands  that  we  shall  not  be  left  to 
supposition,  but  be  supplied  with  some  more  posi- 
tive evidence  of  the  black-white  marriage  not  being 
by  nature's  rite  '*  thus  consummate,"  and  yet  art 
calls  for  delicate,  almost  faint,  portrayal. 

The  common  interpretation  of  the  play,  logically 
carried  out,  is  ruinous.  Aspersing  Desdemona 
later  as  a  woman  of  unnatural  and  ungovernably 
base  impulses,  lago  offers  an  accusation  which 
necessarily  points  back  to  this  occasion  of  the  nup- 
tial celebration.  He  appeals  to  something  which 
Othello  as  an  actual  husband  knows  to  be  either 
true  or  untrue.  If  the  latter  he  would  of  course  re- 
sent it  and  reject  the  suspicion  resting  upon  it,  but 
as, ^unhappily,  he  succumbs  quickly  his  conduct  im- 
plies, in  the  common  theory,  that  his  knowledge  of 
Desdemona's  nature  caused  her  guilt  with  Cassio 
to  appear  altogether  probable.  There  can  then  be 
no  question  of  her  relations  with  the  Moor,  and  the 
play  sinks  to  the  disgusting.  For  otherwise,  if  we 
see  that  when  lago  whispered  his  slander  of  Des- 
demona both  he  and  Othello  were  thinking  of  a 
deflected   nuptial    celebration   and   of   a   marriage 


ISO  THE   OTHELLO, 

yet  unconsummate  between  the  Moor  and  his 
bride,  then  the  artifice  of  lago  in  reconciling  the 
alleged  ungovernable  impulses  of  Desdemona  with 
her  actual  conduct  is  a  marvel  of  duplicity,  and  the 
deception  of  the  Moor  in  respect  to  the  cause  of  her 
abstention  with  him  is  tragically  piteous,  not  con- 
temptibly weak. 

"  That  profit's  yet  to  come  'tween  me  and  you. 
Got)d-night."  * 

This  speech  of  the  Moor  is  pregnant  with  vital 
and  even  contrasted  meaning.  With  the  singular 
fatality  which  distinguishes  the  pair  of  never  ex- 
actly understanding  each  other,  Desdemona  takes 
this  language  the  reverse  of  the  Moor's  intent. 
"  Yet  to  come  "  is  an  expression  which  may  be  used 
in  a  way  implying  soon  to  come  or  never  to  come — 
complete  opposites.  To  Desdemona  it  meant  sim- 
ply a  postponement  which,  however  contrary  to  the 
meaning  of  the  nuptial  celebration  as  understood  at 
that  time  by  even  the  most  modest  of  brides,  was 
one  for  which  she  must  have  thought  Othello  had 
sufficient  reason.  It  did  n'ot  suggest  to  her  that  she 
was  never  to  be  a  wife  fully  devoted  to  her  husband: 
she  simply  put  in  abeyance  the  wedding  sheets 
taken  with  her  when  she  eloped. 

Shakespeare's  first  audiences  took  Othello  differ- 
ently from  Desdemona.  They  knew  he  had  rightly 
proposed  a  permanent  arrest  of  the  marriage,  but 

♦The  contradictions  in  the  early  texts  as  to  the  exits 
here  are  best  solved  by  supposing  the  pair  passed  off 
simultaneously  but  severally,  visibly  indicating  the  sepa- 
ration for  the  night. 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS    THROUGHOUT.      151 

their  difficulty  was  as  to  how  such  a  life  could  be 
maintained  thfough  months  and  years  under  the 
peculiar  conditions  here  prevailing,  and  with  Des- 
demona  certain  to  oppose  it  in  time,  prompted  by 
that  characteristically  feminine,  yet  in  this  instance 
mistaken,  spirit  which  could  not  stop  short  of  a 
complete  consecration  of  herself  to  her  husband. 
For  this  ill-fated  pair  the  epithalamic  stroke  of  the 
nuptial  night  is  sounded  in  a  double  key. 

From  the  moment  of  Othello's  speech  of  renun- 
ciation at  the  door  of  the  nuptial  chamber  the  hy- 
meneal underplot,  which  revolves  about  the  fate  of 
Desdemona  in  marriage,  moves  on  with  redoubled 
force. 

We  must  read  Othello's  second  good-night  as 
addressed  to  Desdemona;  not,  as  has  been  wrongly 
thought,  a  reiterated  adieu  to  Cassio,  to  whom  he 
had  already  bade  farewell  for  the  night.  Nor  must 
we  fail  to  notice  certain  subordinate  touches:  the 
splendid  self-mastery  at  the  opening,  when  the 
Moor  gives  the  caution  for  the  white  nobles  and 
officers  "  not  to  outsport  discretion  " ;  the  preoccu- 
pation of  Othello's  mind  as  he  fixes  the  early  ap- 
pointment of  the  morning,  when  he  is  to  have 
papers  ready  for  transmission  which  are  not  ready 
yet  and  which  may  require  the  labor  of  the  night  for 
completion.  Correctly  enacted  on  the  stage,  how- 
ever, the  culminating  stroke  of  this  scene  should 
appear  in  an  incident  not  embodied  in  the  lines — 
the  parting  of  Othello  and  Desdemona  as  they 
make  exit  by  different  doors  to  their  respective 
chambers,  from  which  they  come  by  the  same  re- 


152  THE   OTHELLO. 

spective  entrances  later  when  aroused  by  the  night 
brawl,  thus  doubly  attesting  their  separation  on  the 
nuptial  night.  Elizabethan  audiences  knew  well 
enough  lago  was  lying,  as  usual,  when  he  spoke  of 
the  night  being  made  wanton  with  Desdemona; 
yet  their  interest  was  powerfully  stimulated  to  see 
how  the  M'oor  could  maintain  his  high  purpose,  op- 
posed as  it  must  be  ultimately  by  Desdemona  her- 
self. For  it  was  she  who  in  her  pure  idealism  and 
erring  devotion  was  the  worst  enemy  of  his  high 
and  glorious  resolve.* 

Turning  from  the  parties  to  the  marriage  to  the 
side  characters,  we  find  the  beautiful  truth  of  the 
union  reflected  by  them  according  to  their  capacity 
to  perceive  and  appreciate  it.  As  is  so  often  the 
case,  we  have  to  seek  the  truth  in  the  precise 
opposite  of  lago's  groveling  slanders;  while 
the  reverence  of  the  gallant  Cassio  for  the 
union  is  proof  against  debasing  insinuation  and 
such     as     he    could     never     have     felt     for     the 

*  Othello's  good-night  speech  is  the  only  one  which  by 
any  sort  of  interpretation  can  be  regarded  as  an  expression 
of  base  impulse,  but  the  critics  have  all  accepted  it  as  such. 
Professor  Young  only  expresses  the  general  opinion  when 
he  says  the  love  of  Desdemona  is  "beautifully  pure  and 
ideal,"  but,  with  this  passage  evidently  in  mind,  he  adds 
that  in  Othello  *'  not  so  much  of  the  beast  had  been 
worked  out."  But  surely  Shakespeare  has  never  asked  us 
to  believe  he  could  preserve  a  beautiful  and  ideal  affec- 
tion in  a  white  woman  while  making  her  the  marital  com- 
panion of  a  black  man  in  whom  the  beast  had  not  been 
worked  out.  Such  companionship  would  be  fatal  to  her 
delicacy  and  ideality.    It  is  a  hopeless  inconsistency  to 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS    THROUGHOUT.      153 

base  alliance  of  black  and  white  which  lago 
tried  to  picture  to  him.  This  significant  con- 
trast in  the  two  men  is  shown  in  a  passage  too  gen- 
erally expurgated  or  diluted  by  the  editors.  It 
must  be  read  in  full  for  these  reasons,  and  because, 
further,  it  palHsades  us  effectually  against  Snider's 
ruinous  doctrine  of  the  play  being  intended  prima- 
rily to  teach  that  the  Moor's  alleged  knowledge  of 
impurity  in  Emilia  inclined  him  to  suspect  it 
quickly  in  Desdemona.  Knowing  only  too  much 
of  laxity  in  women,  Cassio  has  nevertheless  pro- 
foundest  reverence  for  Desdemona,  and  his  high- 
born faith  had  been  confirmed  to  eye  and  ear  when 
he  caught  the  meaning  of  the  good-night  speech 
and  saw  the  pair  make  exit  severally.  lago  could 
never  poison  him! 

/ago.  Our  general  cast  us  thus  early  for  the  love  of  his 
Desdemona;  who  let  us  not  therefore  blame;  he  hath  not 
yet  made  wanton  the  night  with  her;  and  she  is  sport  for 
Jove. 

Cas.  She's  a  most  exquisite  lady. 

think  we  can  save  Desdemona  as  an  angel  of  feminine 
grace  (as  she  truly  is)  and  have  her  live  in  wedlock 
with  a  man  of  alien  race  and  color  in  whom  the  beast 
still  survives.  If  we  are  capable  of  believing  such  a  thing, 
Shakespeare  will  not  ask  it  of  us.  The  conventional  view 
of  the  relations  between  Othello  and  Desdemona  is  its  own 
best  refutation;  if  not,  it  would  surely  be  the  dramatist's 
eternal  condemnation  that  he  should  make  Desdemona  the 
most  ideally  refined  of  all  his  women  save  Miranda — with 
a  delicacy  so  inwrought  as  to  cause  the  verse  forms  of  her 
speech  to  be  profuse  in  the  feminine  ccsst4ra—a.n&  then 
surrender  her  to  a  man  of  barbaresque  blood  and  color  in 
whom  the  beast  still  survives.     It  cannot  be. 


154  THE   OTHELLO. 

lago.  And,  I'll  warrant  her,  full  of  game. 
Cas.  Indeed,  she's  a  most  fresh  and  delicate  creature. 
lago.  What  an  eye  she  has  !  methinks  it  sounds  a  parley 
of  provocation. 

Cas.  An  inviting  eye  ;  and  yet  methinks  right  modest. 
lago.  And  when  she  speaks,  is  it  not  an  alarum  to  love? 
Cas.  She  is  indeed  perfection. 

When,  later  in  the  night,  Othello  was  aroused  by 
the  street  brawl,  he  came  from  his  apartment  ac- 
companied only  by  his  attendant,  appearing  upon 
the  scene  almost  on  the  instant  of  the  uproar  in 
the  street.  He  must  have  been  awake  and  clad 
when  the  disturbance  broke  out.  Desdemona  does 
not  appear  for  some  time  later — not  indeed  until  the 
brawl  has  been  quieted  and  an  examination  into  the 
affair  has  been  made  by  Othello.  She  was  aroused 
by  the  same  clamor  which  brought  Othello  on  the 
scene  in  a  twinkling,  but,  as  she  had  to  delay  to 
dress,  the  swordsmen  were  parted  and  quiet  restored 
before  she  appeared.  Othello  came  instantly  from 
the  room  where  he  was  at  work  with  his  papers; 
Desdemona  from  her  bed  after  the  delay  of  dressing. 

"  Look,  if  my  gentle  love  be  not  raised  up! " 

is  Othello's  exclamation  of  surprise  breaking  into 
his  speech  to  Cassio  when  she  appears — coming  by 
another  entrance  and  from  a  different  apartment 
from  the  Moor.  This  is  his  first  knowledge  that 
Desdemona  too  was  aroused  by  the  uproar.  The 
stage  direction  does  not  say  who  came  with  Desde- 
mona as  she  hurried  in  alarm  from  her  chamber  to 
seek  Othello,  but  gives  simply  this :  "  Re-enter  Des- 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS    THROUGHOUT.      155 

demona,  attended."  But  by  whom  should  she  be 
attended  unless  by  her  regular  attendant?  That  was 
Emilia.  In  the  early  morning  scene  of  the  third 
act  Cassio  asks  if  "  the  gentlewoman  that  attends 
the  general's  wife  be  stirring,"  meaning  Emilia.  So 
Othello  in  the  third  scene  of  the  fourth  act,  near  the 
end  of  the  play,  directs  Desdemona  to  go  to  bed, 
and  **  dismiss  your  attendant,"  which  admonition 
Desdemona  immediately  obeys,  explaining  to  the 
astonished  Emilia  that  she  must  leave  her  that  night 
— must  absent  herself  as  she  had  not  done  before — 
because  it  is  Othello's  express  command.  Emilia, 
up  to  the  night  of  the  murder,  was  the  regular 
nightly  attendant  of  Desdemona,  and  was  with  her 
in  her  chamber  on  the  nuptial  night  as  on  other 
nights,  as  Othello  intended  she  should  be  from  the 
first. 

Emilia  does  not  seem  to  pass  any  time  with  her 
husband,  day  or  night,  during  the  period  of  the 
dramatic  action,  and  he  understands  she  is  con- 
stantly with  Desdemona.  Hence  his  anger  when 
he  discovers  her  alone  in  the  garden  and  away  from 
Desdemona,  though  but  for  a  moment  and  in  the 
daytime.  lago  speaks  of  passing  the  night  with 
Cassio  on  one  occasion  in  particular,  and  we  may 
suppose  they  were  room-mates  for  a  time  while 
his  wife  was  absent,  for  he  has  easy  admission  to 
the  same  lodging  Cassio  occupied,  and  can  go  there 
even  in  Cassio's  absence,  as  he  does  when  he  drops 
the  handkerchief.  But  whether  that  be  so  or  not 
it  is  clear  Emilia  is  executing  the  function  for  which 
she  was  selected  by  Othello  to  help  vindicate  his 


156  THE   OTHELLO. 

"  perfect  soul  "  by  being  a  constant  companion  to 
Desdemona,  and  being  able  if  need  be  to  give  testi- 
mony to  sustain  the  ground  he  took  before  the 
signiory  of  wanting  Desdemona  alone  for  the 
mind's  sake  and  the  heart's  sake,  refuting  Braban- 
tio's  charge  of  desiring  her  for  the  indulgence  of  an 
unnatural  alliance. 

This  night  brawl  provoked  Othello's  indignation 
in  a  singular  and  excessive  degree.  It  occurred  on 
a  night  set  apart  for  revelry,  and  it  seems  strange  at 
first  Othello  should  think  it  so  heinous.  It  began, 
however,  under  his  window,  and  might  suggest 
general  revelry  and  license  emanating  near  the 
source  of  authority  at  Cyprus — possibly  that  "  dis- 
ports of  feathered  Cupid  "  were  diverting  the  Gen- 
eral's oversight  from  his  subordinates  much  as  he 
had  feared  the  senators  would  apprehend.  At  any 
rate,  public  confidence  being  so  important  to 
Othello,  he  was  extremely  anxious  to  quiet  the  dis- 
order and  get  people  back  to  their  beds  with  as  little 
disturbance  as  possible.  He  turns  from  one  to  an- 
other urging  them  all  to  retire,  and  says  he  will  go 
with  Montano  to  act  as  his  surgeon.  Montano  is 
led  off,  but  Othello  pauses  to  summon  again  Des- 
demona, whose  enlivened  curiosity  prompts  her  tcf 
linger. 

0th.  All's  well  now,  sweeting;  come,  away  to  bed. 
Sir,  for  your  hurts,  myself  will  be  j'our  surgeon; 
Lead  him  off.     \To  Montano,  who  is  led  off .'\ 
lago,  look  with  care  about  the  town, 
And  silence  those  whom  this  vile  brawl  distracted. 
Come,  Desdemona  :  'tis  the  soldiers'  life 
To  have  their  balmy  slumbers  waked  with  strife. 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT.      15 7 

"  Come,  away  to  bed,"  like  "  Lead  him  off," 
"  Come,  Desdemona,"  and  the  order  to  lago,  implies 
merely  Othello's  desire  to  restore  quiet  and  get  all 
the  people  back  to  their  beds,  not  that  Desdemona 
was  to  go  with  him.  Othello  does  not  retire  with 
Desdemona,  but  goes  to  dress  Montano's  wounds, 
while  she  returns  to  her  chamber  with  Emilia. 
"All's  well  now,  sweeting,"  with  the  quick  direc- 
tions to  others  to  do  what  is  needed  to  restore  quiet, 
and  his  preparation  to  care  for  the  wounded  man, 
show  Othello  recovered  from  the  strangely  violent 
agitation;  the  strong  habitual  self-control  of  the 
natural  leader  and  commander,  temporarily  lost  be- 
cause of  the  unseen  strain  of  anxiety  wearing  upwDn 
him,  is  now  brought  back  by  the  stimulus  of  the 
night  brawl  acting  upon  and  restoring  the  powerful 
will. 

Shakespeare  might  have  followed  Othello 
through  the  rest  of  the  night  with  all  the  detail  a 
veritist  could  ask.  But  in  his  art  something  is  left 
to  imagination,  and  he  does  not  intend  we  should 
feel  absolutely  sure  of  Desdemona  until  the  last 
act.  For  all  dramatic  purposes  Othello  is  suffi- 
ciently accounted  for  that  night.  Will  anyone  say 
it  is  not  made  sufficiently  plain  by  daybreak — as 
much  so  as  dramatic  suspense  will  permit — what 
was  Othello's  purpose  when  he  bade  Cassio  good- 
night and  set  the  appointment  with  him  for  the 
earliest  hour  in  the  morning?  We  find  when 
morning  comes  Othello  has  ready  for  his  lieutenant 
certain  letters  and  military  reports  to  be  dispatched 
to  Venice.     These   reports   contained   the  joyous 


158  THE  OTHELLO. 

news  of  the  end  of  the  war — intelligence  that  would 
be  written  and  sent  as  soon  as  possible.  Othello 
would  not  have  slept  before  writing  these  reports, 
nor  would  he  allow  the  vessel  to  delay  sailing  after 
they  were  written.  They  were  not  ready  at  bed- 
time; they  were  ready  at  daybreak.  Othello  had 
spent  the  night  writing  them,  his  task  being  inter- 
rupted by  the  street  brawl  and  the  dressing  ol  Mon- 
tano's  wounds.  Next  day  Desdemona  accounts 
for  the  headache  Othello  suffers  by  saying  it  is  the 
result  of  lack  of  sleep.  His  reports  were  doubtless 
elaborate,  and,  with  many  private  letters,  would  oc- 
cupy all  the  time  until  the  early  summer  dawn.  It 
is  inconceivable  that  Shakespeare,  with  nuptial 
nights  bearing  the  significance  they  did  in  his  time, 
would  treat  a  bridegroom  in  this  way  if  it  were  not 
for  a  special  purpose  and  special  emphasis. 

This  last  scene  of  the  nuptial  night  produces  a  re- 
markable affect  on  lago.  We  recall  his  coarse 
vulgarity  early  the  same  night.  But  after  Emilia 
and  Desdemona  retire  together  and  Othello  goes 
fo  attend  Montano  there  is  a  complete,  immediate 
change  in  lago.  This  same  man  who  early  in  the 
watch  talked  vilely  to  Cassio  now  before  day  has 
broken  holds  a  different  language.  Before,  he  be- 
lieved Othello  actuated  by  a  coarse  desire  for  Des- 
demona; now  he  says  the  Moor  has  given  himself 
up,  not  to  indulgence,  but  to  "  the  contemplation, 
mark,  and  denotement  of  her  parts  and  graces." 
Strange  lago  should  credit  anything  so  platonic. 
He  says  "  our  General's  wife  is  now  the  General," 
echoing  the  language   of  the   reverential   Cassio, 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT,      I59 

who,  in  picturing  her  high-minded  sway,  declared 
Desdemona  '*  our  great  captain's  captain."  The 
idea  is  that  of  worship,  distant  adoration,  not  mari- 
tal love.     lago  continues: 

"  And  then  for  her 
To  win  the  Moor — were't  to  renounce  his  baptism, 
All  seals  and  symbols  of  redeemed  sin, 
His  soul  is  so  enfetter'd  to  her  love, 
That  she  may  make,  unmake,  do  what  she  list. 
Even  as  her  appetite  shall  play  the  god 
With  his  weak  function." 

lago  does  not  mean  that  Desdemona  has  ac- 
quired great  influence  through  marital  endearment. 
In  his  view  she  may  **  do  what  she  list,"  deny 
Othello  to  any  extent,  and,  whether  he  like  it  or 
not,  rule  him  as  a  god.  Heathen  by  birth,  baptism 
was  no  form,  but  profound  reality,  to  Othello.  To 
renounce  it  and  obey  not  as  a  responding  lover, 
but  as  if  Desdemona  were  a  god — such  superla- 
tive comparisons  demonstrate  lago's  belief  that 
Othello's  aflfection  has  reached  the  plane  of  a  soul 
love — almost  religious  veneration.  Of  all  men 
lago  now  believes  such  a  love  possible.  lago's 
skeptical  mind  was  not  convinced  by  the  voyage  in 
separate  ships,  and  he  seems  to  have  had  no  respect 
for  Othello's  declarations  before  the  Senate.  Now, 
however,  his  impressions  rest  on  the  part  his  own 
wife  is  taking  as  constant  companion,  and  before 
dawn  of  the  very  night  which  he  said  was  to  be 
made  wanton  he  confesses  to  himself  a  miracle  has 
been  wrought  with  the  Moor.  Disbelieving  every 
high  profession  before,  he  is  satisfied  now. 


i6o  THE  OTHELLO. 

Just  before  the  nuptial  celebration  lago  declares 
his  plan  to  be  even'd  with  Othello  '*  wife  for  wife  " : 
only  in  case  that  failed  would  he  try  to  throw  the 
Moor  into  a  jealousy.  Then  came  the  disclosures 
of  the  bridal  night,  showing  lago  the  real  relations 
of  the  pair,  and  we  hear  no  more  of  attempts  to 
corrupt  Desdemona.  The  plan  for  approaching 
her  is  abandoned  as  no  longer  to  be  thought  of,  and 
the  second  scheme  resorted  to.  But  though  con- 
vinced by  what  he  has  seen  and  heard  that  Desde- 
mona is  an  unapproachable  virgin  wife,  lago  at 
once  proposes  to  make  the  very  fact  of  her  supreme 
innocence  the  instrument  of  her  undoing.  He  will 
infuse  into  Othello  the  belief  that  she  is  easily  ab- 
stinent with  him  because  freely  indulgent  with 
Cassio. 

Satanic  in  his  determination  to  have  perfect  inno- 
cence get  the  punishment  of  lowest  guilt,  lago  com- 
pletes his  plot ; 

**  .  .  .  for  whiles  this  honest  fool 
Plies  Desdemona  to  repair  his  fortunes, 
And  she  for  him  pleads  strongly  to  the  Moor, 
I'll  pour  this  pestilence  into  his  ear, — 
That  she  repeals  him  for  her  body's  lust; 
And  by  how  much  she  strives  to  do  him  good 
She  shall  undo  her  credit  with  the  Moor. 
So  will  I  turn  her  virtue  into  pitch, 
And  out  of  her  own  goodness  make  the  net 
That  shall  enmesh  them  all." 

The  virtue  and  goodness  of  Desdemona,  not  only 
as  the  friend  of  Cassio,  but  as  the  platonic  bride, 
are  now  to  be  ruined.  lago  believed  at  first  Des- 
demona must  be  animated  by  excessive  passion  and 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT.      l6i 

desire  for  a  husband  of  tropical  African  ardor,  and 
the  result  would  inevitably  be  satiety,  disgust,  loath- 
ing. After  the  disclosures  of  the  nuptial  night  that 
idea  is  abandoned.  Even  lago  sees  an  angel  where 
he  thought  there  was  a  beast.  It  is  his  plan,  how- 
ever, to  poison  Othello  with  the  suspicion  that  a 
white  woman  could  not  marry  a  black  man  unless 
urged  on  by  unnatural  passion.  That  suspicion 
will  strike  Othello  at  his  weakest  point, — touch  his 
supersensitive  feeling  of  racial  inferiority  and 
prompt  the  fear  that  he  alone  looks  upward  in  mar- 
riage and  has  the  "  perfect  soul," — but  how  is  it  to 
be  reconciled  with  Desdemona's  post-nuptial  con- 
duct? Clinging  to  the  idea  of  unnatural  passion  in 
Desdemona  as  the  one  most  certain  to  work  and 
craze  Othello,  the  subtle  villain  knows,  from  the 
events  of  the  nuptial  night,  he  must  craftily  qualify 
this  general  doctrine  in  its  application  to  her.  Had 
he  not  seen  and  understood  the  unplanned  but 
deeply  significant  revelation  of  the  nuptial  night,  he 
could  not  have  done  this  with  such  consummate 
and  cruel  effect: 

"  Ay,  there's  the  point:  as — to  be  bold  with  you, 
Not  to  affect  many  proposed  matches 
Of  her  own  clime,  complexion,  and  degree, 
Whereto  we  see  in  all  things  nature  tends — 
Foh!  one  may  smell  in  such  a  will  most  rank, 
Foul  disproportion,  thoughts  unnatural. 
But  pardon  me;  I  do  not  in  position 
Distinctly  speak  of  her;  though  I  may  fear 
Her  will,  recoiling  to  her  better  judgment, 
May  fall  to  match  you  with  her  country  forms 
And  happily  repent." 


1 62  THE   OTHELLO. 

What  subtle,  dreadful,  fateful  villainy  is  this!  It 
is  his  inside  knowledge  through  Emilia  that  en- 
ables him  to  work  Othello  so  fearfully.  He  probes 
the  inflamed  nerve,  declaring  only  extreme  lust 
could  prompt  a  white  woman  to  refuse  proper  mar- 
riage with  men  of  her  own  complexion  in  order  to 
wed  a  black  man;  but,  knowing  Desdemona's  ab- 
stinent conduct  will  not  square  with  any  charge  of 
physical  desire  for  Othello,  he  makes  a  momentary 
exception  of  her.  "  But  I  do  not  distinctly  speak 
of  her."  Is  she  then  to  be  exculpated  from  the  gen- 
eral charge  because  of  her  abstention  with  Othello? 
Never.  The  inhuman  dog  intends  to  make  her  the 
worse  for  that.  Marrying  Othello  with  the  base 
impulse  of  a  hot-blooded,  uncontrollable  nature,  she 
has  yet  fortunately  "  recoiled  to  her  better  judg- 
ment "  and  "  happily  repented  "  of  intending  mari- 
tal endearment  with  a  man  ol  alien  race.  That  is 
the  explanation  of  her  willing  sexual  abstention  in 
respect  to  Othello,  as  it  is  also  the  unspoken  but 
potent  suggestion  of  her  illicit  and  inevitable  in- 
dulgence with  a  man  of  her  own  complexion.  The 
ardor  which  caused  her  unnatural  desire  for  a  black 
man,  which  prompted  her  strange  advances  to 
Othello,  and  made  her  give  the  hint  upon  which  he 
spoke,  nevertheless  could  not  prove  equal  to  the 
last  step  in  the  contemplated  wrong  against  nature. 
With  poisonous  insinuation  lago  praises  her  for  re- 
penting and  recoiling  in  time,  thereby  indirectly 
torturing  Othello  with  added  cruelty.  Othello  is 
not  only  left  to  reach  the  unavoidable  conviction 
that  in  turning  from  him  she  has  turned  to  a  man 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT      163 

of  her  own  race,  but  is  compelled  to  discern  for 
himself  a  conclusion  still  more  bitter.  Her  guilt 
is  more  wanton  than  mere  infidelity,  in  that  she  has 
not  made  him  secondary  where  once  he  was  first, 
not  made  him  share  with  another,  but  actually  lav- 
ished upon  the  other  that  which  he  could  not  have 
at  any  time  or  under  any  circumstances,  husband 
though  he  was.  And  as  he  gladly  accepted  ab- 
stention to  save  what  was  highest  and  holiest  in  his 
goddess,  he  now  appears  as  a  dupe  without  pre- 
cedent, and  a  man  who  can  no  longer  hold  faith  in 
humanity  or  heaven.  Guilt  base  and  wanton  be- 
yond any  common  adultery  can  be  punished  only 
by  a  wrath  great  and  awful  beyond  any  mere  jeal- 
ousy. Infusing  such  beliefs  and  arousing  such  aw- 
ful wrath  in  Othello,  this  devil  certainly  did  fulfill 
his  promise  to  turn  the  very  virtue  and  innocence 
of  the  wedded  virgin  into  pitch. 

'•  O  curse  of  marriage. 
That  we  can  call  these  delicate  creatures  ours, 
And  not  their  appetites!    I  had  rather  be  a  toad, 
And  live  upon  the  vapor  of  a  dungeon. 
Than  keep  a  corner  in  the  thing  I  love 
For  others'  uses.     Yet,  'tis  the  plague  of  great  ones; 
Prerogatived  are  they  less  than  the  base; 
'Tis  destiny  unshunnable,  like  death. 
Even  then  this  forked  plague  is  fated  to  us 
When  we  do  quicken." 

To  call  Desdemona  his  wife  while  Cassio  has  her 
appetite!  Mark,  that  Othello  does  not  speak  of  a 
use  in  common  with  another,  but  of  that  other  hav- 
ing a  distant  corner  set  apart  for  himself  alone.     By 


1 64  THE   OTHELLO. 

"  great  ones  "  Othello  does  not  mean,  as  lago  did, 
— for  he  is  always  a  foil  to  him,  even  in  language, — 
mere  men  of  wealth  or  distinguished  position,  but 
those  who  are  great  in  the  sense  of  taking  a  lofty 
view  of  love  and  placing  it  on  a  plane  high  above 
physical  attractions  or  antagonisms.  Yet  in  his 
anguish  he  now  declares  they  who  are  great  enough 
to  do  this  are  really  less  secure  and  less  privileged 
than  the  base  who  do  not  try  to  keep  affection 
above  and  beyond  physical  desire.  Jaundiced  with 
the  idea  that,  although  Desdemona  shows  not  the 
slightest  sexual  desire  toward  him,  she  is  yet  a 
woman  of  passionate  temperament  and  has  a  con- 
suming passion  for  Cassio,  Othello  plunges  into  the 
pitiful  divination  of  palmistry. 

0th.  Give  me  your  hand:  this  hand  is  moist,  my  Ijidy. 

Des.  It  yet  hath  felt  no  age  nor  known  no  sorrow. 

0th.  This  argues  fruitfulness  and  liberal  heart: 
Hot,  hot,  and  moist:  this  hand  of  yours  requires 
A  sequester  from  liberty,  fasting  and  prayer, 
Much  castigation,  exercise  devout; 
For  here's  a  young  and  sweating  devil  here, 
That  commonly  rebels.     'Tis  a  good  hand, 
A  frank  one. 

What  plain  teaching  this.  Exulting  and  rejoic- 
ing in  a  soul  love,  keeping  Emilia  as  a  companion 
ever  with  the  virgin  wife,  so  if  need  be  he  can  prove 
to  the  world  her  white  virginity  remains  sacred  in 
marriage,  this  once  reverential  bridegroom  now 
suspects  his  absence  from  the  nuptial  chamber  has 
been  another's  opportunity;  that  bride  and  compan- 
ion have  united  to  deceive  him,  and  while  he  has 


A    CHORD    THAI'  SOUNDS    THROUGHOUT.      165 

lived  in  a  fool's  paradise  of  lofty  sentiment  his  angel 
has  had  her  "  stolen  hours  of  lust."  Yet  when  it 
comes  to  a  test  of  these  suspicions  he  has  no  bet- 
ter evidence  than  her  hand  by  which  to  judge  the 
strength  of  her  passions! 

After  the  suspicions  excited  by  lago  were  con- 
firmed by  the  "  sweating  devil  "  of  her  hand,  and 
by  the  supposed  foul  use  she  had  made  of  his  sacred 
token,  and  after  the  apparent  open  avowal  Cassio 
made  of  criminal  relations  with  Desdemona,  there 
was  nothing  to  shelter  her  from  the  unrestrained 
fury  of  Othello.  She  could  hardly  comprehend 
him  when  he  found  evidence  of  hot,  uncontrollable 
passion  in  her  hand,  but  as  the  language  flowing 
from  the  crazed  Othello's  mind  grew  fouler  and 
plainer  there  was  no  room  for  misunderstanding. 
At  last  she  saw  and  realized  that  he  was  accusing 
her  of  relations  toward  another  which  she  had 
never  assumed  with  him.  In  her  wretchedness  she 
saw  at  last  that  Othello  believed  she  had  a  nature  so 
passionate  it  must  have  some  outlet;  if  not  with 
him,  certainly  with  another.  She  saw,  too,  even 
when  his  love  for  her  seemed  ruined,  that  her  bodily 
charms  still  influenced  him,  for  he  stopped  short  in 
a  torrent  of  abuse  to  exclaim  over  her  beauty: 

'*  O  thou  weed, 
Who  art  so  lovely  fair,  and  smell'st  so  sweet, 
That  the  sense  aches  at  thee." 

Desdemona  understood  from  this  she  still  had 
one  hold  upon  Othello,  one  possible  means  of  re- 
claiming his  love,  and,  though  gentle  and  timid  in 


i66  THE  OTHELLO. 

the  extreme,  her  desperation  made  her  act  quickly. 
She  had  always  believed,  like  Massinger's  Cleora, 
that  the  love  of  a  lowly  man,  if  true,  should  not  go 
unrewarded,  but  now  she  had  an  added  motive.  If 
because  of  abstention  toward  him  she  is  accused  of 
indulging  her  passionate  nature  with  a  more  fa- 
vored person,  of  lavishing  upon  Cassio  attractions 
which  her  own  husband  had  only  admired  at  a  dis- 
tance, Othello  must  be  made  to  see  that  there  is 
no  possible  favor  that  will  not  be  granted  to  him. 
Only  so  can  she  wipe  that  suspicion  from  his  mind; 
only  so  can  she  give  the  virginal  proof  of  inno- 
cence. Her  resolution  is  quickly  taken,  and  she 
turns  to  Emilia. 

Prithee,  to-night 
Lay  on  my  bed  my  wedding  sheets;  remember; 
And  call  thy  husband  hither. 

Emil.  Here's  a  change  indeed! 

Des.  'Tis  meet  I  should  be  used  so,  very  meet. 
How  have  I  been  behaved,  that  he  might  stick 
The  foul'st  opinion  on  my  greatest  abuse?  * 

Platonic  relations  are  to  be  ended.  The  love  of 
the  "  perfect  soul  " — that  love  which  in  Othello's 
hope  was  to  remain  so  purely  and  perfectly  of  the 
soul  that  the  body  was  to  have  no  share  in  it — is 
wrecked.  The  wedding  sheets  are  to  be  brought 
forth.  And  Emilia's  astonishment  at  this  turn  of 
affairs  appropriately  finds  expression — **  Here's  a 
change    indeed!"     Then    after    Emilia    goes    out 

*  I  follow  the  first  quarto  instead  of  the  folio  and  nearly 
all  modeirn  editions,  which  have  "least misuse." 


A   CHORD   THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT.      167 

comes  Desdemona's  brief  soliloquy  over  the  step 
she  is  about  to  take.  '*  How  have  I  been  behaved!  " 
It  must  be  her  unwifely  sexual  abstention  is  what 
has  caused  Othello  to  suspect  her  of  sating  desires 
with  another — granting  her  favors  to  a  more  fa- 
vored person.  It  is  this  error  of  omission,  this  her 
"  greatest  abuse,"  which  has  led  and  almost  com- 
pelled Othello  to  form  one  of  the  foulest  of 
opinions.  There  is  but  one  remedy — to  show 
Othello  there  is  no  possible  favor  that  will  not  be 
granted  to  him.* 

Mournful  it  is  to  know  that,  as  Desdemona 
directs  her  bed  to  be  prepared  for  an  appalling 
sacrifice,  Othello  has  already  determined  to  make 
that  same  bed  a  death  scene. 

*It  is  plain  that  the  term  "  small'st,"  as  passed  hereto- 
fore by  all  editors,  is  a  misprint  for  "  foul'st,"  as  the  substi- 
tution would  be  an  easy  one  to  make.  I  should  warn 
youthful  readers  not  familiar  with  the  records  of  Shakes- 
pearean commentary  that  this  change  in  the  text  is  original, 
not  previously  advanced,  and  not  authoritative.  It  remains 
to  be  seen  whether  the  authorities  will  accept  a  view  so  con- 
trary to  what  they  have  held.  Desdemona's  soliloquy,  as 
they  have  explained  it  heretofore,  is  an  absurdity.  Clark, 
for  instance,  says  the  meaning  is,  "  How  can  I  have  be- 
haved, that  even  my  least  misconduct  should  have  subjected 
me  to  the  smallest  misconstruction  on  his  part  ?  "  As  if 
this  angel  of  modesty  and  self-sacrifice  would  plume  her- 
self with  the  claim  that  even  the  smallest  criticism  could 
not  be  made  of  her  smallest  error !  That  would  make 
Desdemona  unnaturally  and  absurdly  self-complacent.  In 
truth,  the  last  thing  Dedesmona  would  do  would  be  to 
accuse  Othello,  and  here  as  elsewhere  she  struggles  to 
fasten  the  blame  upon  herself. 


1 68  THE  or  HELLO. 

Des.  He  says  he  will  return  incontinent: 
He  hath  commanded  me  to  go  to  bed, 
And  bade  me  to  dismiss  you. 

Eniil.  Dismiss  me ! 

Des.  It  was  his  bidding:  therefore,  good  Emilia, 
Give  me  my  nightly  wearing,  and  adieu: 
We  must  not  now  displease  him. 

Surprised  as  Emilia  was  when  directed  to  spread 
the  wedding  sheets  upon  the  bed,  she  has  not  yet 
recovered  herself,  but  is  again  taken  aback  when 
told  she  is  to  be  dismissed  and  Othello  is  coming 
to  the  chamber.  "Dismiss  me!"  She  has  been 
in  such  constant  nightly  attendance  upon  Desde- 
mona,  and  has  become  so  thoroughly  accustomed 
to  the  fact  of  an  unconsummated  marriage  of  the 
"  perfect  soul," — the  love  of  the  soul  perfectly  free 
of  the  body's  entanglements, — she  cannot  bring 
herself  to  think  of  it  as  anything  else.  She  knew 
Othello's  purpose,  and  she  cannot  believe  he  has 
changed  it  and  now  intends  to  consummate  the 
marriage,  even  though  Desdemona  herself  says  so. 
Emilia  was  not  a  woman  of  high  ideas  nor  any  too 
great  faith  in  virtue;  she  grounds  her  confidence  in 
Desdemona  on  the  fact  of  her  constant  attendance 
and  personal  knowledge.  When  it  came  to  the 
charge  of  Desdemona's  guilt  with  Cassio,  she  ex- 
claimed: 

'•Why  should  he  call  her  whore  ?   Who  keeps  her  company? 
What  place?  what  time?  what  form?  what  likelihood? " 

Of  her  own  personal  knowledge  she  declares 
Desdemona's  guilt  impossible.  But  Emilia  soon 
has  orders  from  both  Othello  and  Desdemona  to 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS   THROUGHOUT.      169 

leave  Desdemona's  chamber  at  night.  The  hor- 
ror redoubles  as  we  realize  that  Desdemona  orders 
Emilia's  absence  for  one  sacrifice  while  Othello  de- 
mands it  to  enforce  another. 

Even  when  Othello  ordered  the  attendant  dis- 
missed and  his  wife  to  retire,  Desdemona  could 
not  comfort  herself  with  the  thought  that  she  had 
acted  in  wifely  anticipation  of  his  wishes  when  she 
ordered  the  wedding  sheets  upon  her  bed.  It 
might  seem  as  if  she  was  now  about  to  do  some- 
thing to  please  him;  to  make  a  rightful  sacrifice  that 
should  bring  her  some  reward;  to  fulfill  her  long 
though  vaguely  cherished  intent.  According  to 
her  belief  she  had  now  started  on  the  way  to  reclaim 
Othello's  love,  but  the  intermarriage  when  made 
physical  is  so  against  nature  that  the  mistakenly  de- 
voted creature  can  have  no  throb  of  hope  or  proper 
feeling  about  its  consummation.  Instead  an  awful 
sense  of  impending  sacrifice  settles  upon  her.  It 
was  impossible  she  could  at  last  arrange  her  mar- 
riage bed  for  a  man  of  alien  race  and  blood  without 
a  benumbing  of  soul  and  body.  The  perfect  soul 
love  in  which  she  and  Othello  once  exulted  is  now 
to  be  destroyed  forever.  Premonitions  of  death 
creep  over  her.  She  begins  to  think  of  the  wed- 
ding sheets  as  shrouds. 

Emil.  I  have  laid  those  sheets  you  bade  me  on  the  bed. 

Des.  All's  one.     Good  faith,  how  foolish  are  our  minds! 
If  I  do  die  before,  prithee,  shroud  me  * 
In  one  of  those  same  sheets. 

*  Modern  editors  spoil  Desdemona's  syncopated  language 
by  causing  her  to  speak  of  death  "  before  thee."    The  first 


I70  THE  OTHELLO. 

Then  the  willow  song  which  she  tries  in  vain  to 
drive  from  her  mind  has  to  be  sung,  and  after  that 
a  reaction  is  born  of  the  thoug'ht  she  is  preparing  to 
do  her  prorogued  duty  by  Othello. 

Des.  Good-night,  good-night;  heaven  me  such  uses  send, 
Not  to  pick  bad  from  bad,  but  by  bad  mend! 

These  lines  have  never  been  correctly  explained. 
The  "  uses "  Desdemona  has  in  mind  are  those 
Emilia  has  just  spoken  of  as  pertaining  to  ''  sport 
and  frailty,"  and  are  such  as  she  says  husbands 
make  of  wives  and  teach  to  wives.  Desdemona 
cannot  accept  such  an  idea.  She  prays  Heaven  for 
a  husband's  uses,  not  to  learn  passion  or  desire  from 
his  example,  but  to  use  such  things  to  mend  her 
error  of  omission  and  make  her  wifely  duty  more 
perfect.  But  Othello  comes  to  the  bed  only  to  take 
Desdemona's  life.  "  Will  you  come  to  bed,  my 
lord?"  was  the  invitation  never  to  be  answered  by 
Othello;  but  after  he  had  taken  her  life  and  awak- 
ened to  the  knowledge  of  her  innocence  what  a 

folio  properly  omitted  "  thee."  To  speak  of  dying  before 
Emilia  would  be  extremely  vague  and  indefinite,  as  both 
were  young  and  might  well  live  half  a  century.  Des- 
demona is  thinking  of  death  intervening  before  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  nuptial  purpose  for  which  she  and  Emilia 
are  preparing,  and  she  uses  "  before  "  much  as  she  had  no 
doubt  often  used  "  because,"  well  knowing  that  Emilia 
would  fill  out  the  gap  and  complete  the  sense.  And  Emilia 
at  once  chides  her  for  foolish  fears,  which  would  be 
absurd  if  she  had  understood  Desdemona  to  refer  to  an 
event  probably  so  vaguely  distant  and  uncertain  as  that  of 
dying  before  her,  which  might  occur  half  a  century  hence. 
She  knew  what  was  meant. 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUA'DS   THROUGHOUT.      I?! 

world  of  tragedy  was  summed  up  in  the  lament  over 
her  dead  form: 

••  Cold,  cold,  my  girl. 
Even  like  thy  chastity!  " 

And  at  the  close  it  is  Emilia,  the  constant  attend- 
ant, who  puts  the  cup  to  Othello's  lips  by  giving 
conclusive  testimony  to  the  innocence  of  Desde- 
mona. 

0th.  Thy  husband  knew  it  all. 

Emz'l.  My  husband! 

Otk.  Thy  husband. 

Emil.  That  she  was  false  to  wedlock? 

0th.  Ay,  with  Cassio.     Nay,  had  she  been  true, 
If  heaven  would  make  me  such  another  world 
Of  one  entire  and  perfect  chrysolite, 
I'd  not  have  sold  her  for  it. 

Emil.  My  husband! 

Oth.  Ay,  'twas  he  that  told  me  first: 

An  honest  man  he  is,  and  hates  the  slime 
That  sticks  on  filthy  deeds. 

Emil.  My  husband! 

Oth.  What  needs  this  iteration,  woman?    I  say  thy  hus- 
band. 

Emil.  O  mistress,  villainy  hath  made  mocks  with  love! 
My  husband  say  that  she  was  false! 

Oth.  He,  woman; 

I  say  thy  husband;  dost  understand  the  word? 
My  friend,  thy  husband,  honest,  honest  lago. 

This  extraordinary  iteration,  with  Emilia's  aston- 
ished exclamation  so  oft  repeated,  attests  the 
strength  of  her  conviction  that  her  husband  of  all 
men  knew  the  truth  about  Desdemona, — knew  it 
from  her  constant  companionship  and  as  she  told  it 


172  THE   OTHELLO. 

to  him, — and  poor  as  was  her  opinion  of  lago,  she 
had  not  thought  him  capable  of  such  cruel  slander 
when  he  personally  knew  better.  As  she  listens  to 
Othello's  revelations  and  recalls  what  she  had  told 
lago  from  time  to  time,  she  can  only  keep  crying 
*'My  husband!" 

As  the  climax  approaches,  the  testimony  of 
Emilia,  the  daily  and  nightly  attendant  of  Desde- 
mona,  is  so  positive  and  direct  it  forces  the  truth 
into  the  wrought  and  perplexed  mind  of  the  Moor 
as  no  other  testimony  could.  The  very  woman  he 
appointed  to  have  personal  knowledge  of  Desde- 
mona's  relations  with  him  in  marriage  is  the  one 
who,  by  virtue  of  that  appointment,  is  now  able  to 
vindicate  her  with  others  also,  and  to  overwhelm 
Othello  himself  with  proof  of  Desdemona's  inno- 
cence and  his  own  guilt.  Alas,  that  a  dramatic  cli- 
max so  splendid  has  been  so  long  obscured  by  false 
interpretation ! 

Time  and  again  does  Emilia  declare  Desdemona 
innocent,  not  on  the  ground  of  faith  or  confidence, 
but  because  in  her  position  she  has  absolute  knowl- 
edge of  the  young  wife's  conduct.  She  assumes 
everybody  will  concede  the  accuracy  of  her  knowl- 
edge about  Desdemona;  that  she  knew  her  rela- 
tions with  all  men,  her  husband  included,  and  the 
only  question  is  whether  she  is  telling  the  truth. 
Othello,  too,  assumed  if  Desdemona  was  guilty 
Emilia  must  know  it.  Thus  when  Emilia  vowed 
she  had  seen  nothing  '*  nor  ever  heard  nor  ever  did 
suspect,"  Othello  classed  her  as  a  keeper  of  villain- 
ous secrets.     He  could  not  think  it  possible  Desde- 


A    CHORD    THAT  SOUNDS    THROUGHOUT.      173 

mona  could  be  guilty  and  Emilia  n'ot  know  it.  So 
at  last  Emilia  spoke  as  one  having  personal  knowl- 
edge: 

"  Moor,  she  was  chaste;  she  loved  thee,  cruel  Moor; 
So  come  my  soul  to  bliss  as  I  speak  true!  " 

Emilia  makes  this  assertion  not  as  one  who  be- 
lieves or  has  faith,  but  has  actual  knowledge;  and 
she  risks  heaven  on  the  truth  of  her  assertion.  Her 
testimony  is  the  more  convincing  as  her  faith  in 
female  virtue  was  not  strong.  She  believed  the 
world  full  of  unfaithful  wives,  but  the  blame  rested 
on  their  husbands,  and  the  women  did  right  in  re- 
taliating wrong  for  wrong.  She  expressly  declared 
provocation  such  as  Des'demona  had  received  was 
sufficient.  Yet  she  affirms  the  purity  of  Desde- 
mona's  conduct  of  her  own  knowledge.  Only  such 
knowledge  could  prompt  Emilia  to  speak  so 
strongly.  She  had  dropped  broad  suggestions  to 
Desdemona  only  to  find  the  meaning  was  not  un- 
derstood. 

"  O  she  was  heavenly  true  !  " 

Thus  does  Emilia  hear  testimony,  not  to  marital 
fidelity  or  wifely  honor,  but  to  the  surpassing,  heav- 
enly innocence  of  a  virgin  wife. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


Even  the  most  doting  of  Shakespeare's  com- 
mentators have  failed  to  refute  the  charge  of  un- 
natural conduct  in  Brabantio  in  casting  his  daugh- 
ter oflf  with  a  cruel  calumny,  or  to  prove  that  the  ac- 
tion of  the  Senate  in  recalling  Othello  so  soon  was 
not  highly  improbable  or  absurd.  But  have  we  not 
now  an  answer  to  both  these  posers?  Will  not  the 
interpretation  now  suggested  help  us  to  meet  them 
otherwise  than  with  a  prudent  silence? 

Brabantio  could  not  forgive  the  marriage,  as  did 
his  fellows  in  the  Senate,  or  regard  it  from  the 
poetic  side :  his  standpoint  was  diflferent.  He  was  a 
man  of  great  family  pride  and  hope;  Desdemona 
was  his  only  child;  through  her  alone  could  his 
blood  descend,  and  the  "  noble  matches  "  proposed 
to  her  had  met  with  hi's  approval  as  they  foreshad- 
owed fit  heirs  for  his  honors  and  his  fortune.  Al- 
most his  first  thought  when  told  of  the  marriage 
with  the  Moor  was  the  bitterness  and  disappoint- 
ment his  old  age  must  suffer  in  consequence.  The 
cunning  lago  knew  the  weak  point,  just  where  to 
strike  Brabantio  hardest,  when  in  announcing  the 
elopement  and  marriage  he  pictured  the  old  noble 
becoming  the  grandsire  of  hybrid  or  half-animal 
offspring.  As  this  marriage  could  continue  Bra- 
174 


BRABANrmS  SEVERITY.  175 

bantio's  blood  only  in  the  channels  of  miscegena- 
tion, the  old  magnifico  could  never  consent  to  it  or 
forgive  it.  If  such  things  were  tolerated,  the  half- 
breed  offspring  of  Moors  would  become  heirs  to  the 
honors  and  wealth  of  Venetian  nobles. 

"  Bond-slaves  and  pagans  shall  our  statesmen  be." 

Anguished  and  outraged  beyond  possibility  of  re- 
pair, Brabanti'o  cast  after  Desdemona  a  fearful  part- 
ing shot,  warning  Othello  that  as  she  had  deceived 
her  father  she  might  her  husband.  It  was  cruel, 
but  the  provocation  was  great.  It  could  not  recon- 
cile Brabantio  to  show  him  that  the  marriage  was 
platonic;  his  hopes  were  still  ruined.  And  yet  the 
charge  of  unfilial  conduct,  so  often  lodged  against 
Desdemona,  cannot  be  sustained.  It  was  her  su- 
preme innocence  which  made  her  lose  sight  of 
Othello's  color  and  think  she  could  not  be  wrong 
in  following  him  any  more  than  other  women  had 
been  with  their  husbands,  or  even  as  her  own 
mother  in  marrying  her  father.  She  was  utterly 
blind  to  the  one  thing  which  made  her  case  utterly 
different,  and  could  not  see  why  she  should  not  be 
pardoned,  as  were  other  daughters  guilty  of  elope- 
ment and  secret  marriage.  Brabantio  has  been  too 
severely  censured  by  those  who  do  not  appreciate 
the  bitterness  forced  upon  him:  Desdemona  un- 
justly accused  by  those  who  do  not  see  how  com- 
pletely blind  she  was  to  the  fact  of  her  marriage  be- 
ing different  from  elopements  that  were  pardoned 
and  forgotten.  She  dreaded  her  father's  "  impa- 
tient thoughts,"  for  he  had  been  to  her  a  "  lord  of 


176  THE   OTHELLO. 

duty,"  but  felt  that  she  was  not  doing  more  than 
parents  usually  forgave  after  the  fir*st  disappoint- 
ment. So  indeed  Brabantio  would  have  forgiven 
it  if  Othello  had  been  white.  He  had  forbidden 
Roderigo  to  haunt  about  his  doors,  and  yet  when 
he  heard  of  the  elopement  regretted  that  '*  the 
snipe  "  had  not  won  Desdemona.  He  might  have 
been  reconciled  even  to  Roderigo  as  a  son-in-law, 
but  a  marriage  which  at  most  would  do  nothing  for 
the  old  noble  and  his  hopes  but  to  mix  his  blood 
with  that  of  pagans  and  bondslaves  could  receive 
from  him  only  a  father's  curse.  The  supreme  fact 
to  which  the  daughter  was  so  utterly  blind — 
Othello's  color  and  illegitimate  marital  blood — was 
one  never  to  be  overlooked  by  the  father. 

Equally  satisfactory  is  the  theory  of  the  platonic 
marriage  in  solving  the  long-standing  enigma  of 
Othello's  displacement  from  command  so  soon 
after  his  arrival  at  Cyprus. 

It  is  no  fault  in  Shakespeare  that  he  puts  clocks 
in  Caesar's  time,  makes  cannons  and  pistols  fire  be- 
fore they  were  invented,  or  tells  us  Hamlet  was  a 
student  of  a  university  not  founded  until  long  after 
Hamlet's  time.  These  things  violate  historical  ac- 
curacy, not  true  dramatic  probability — ^the  proba- 
bility which  is  true  to  the  plot  and  the  characters. 
In  this  play,  however,  the  accepted  interpretation 
leaves  Shakespeare  responsible  for  a  gross  viola- 
tion of  real  dramatic  probability  in  that  Othello,  the 
favorite  general,  is  displaced  from  command  and 
recalled  within  a  day  or  two  after  being  sent  to 
Cyprus.     He  was  chosen  by  the  unanimous  voice 


BRABANTias  SEVERITY.  177 

of  the  Senate  as  the  ablest  and  safest  general;  noth- 
ing had  occurred  to  slubber  the  gloss  of  his  great 
reputation,  and  yet  before  he  is  more  than  fairly 
under  way  his  recall  is  ordered  and  a  commander 
confessed  to  be  his  inferior  is  put  in  his  place. 
Why  should  the  Senate  do  such  a  thing?  True,  the 
Turkish  fleet  has  perished,  and  the  danger  of  war 
is  over,  but  that  is  no  reason  for  a  change  of  gen- 
erals, and  the  fact  could  not  be  known  to  the  Sen- 
ate to  exist  at  the  time  the  recall  was  ordered.  No 
critic  or  commentator  has  been  able  to  give  a  re- 
spectable reason,  standing  dramatic  tests,  for  the 
recall  of  Othello  at  a  time  the  Senate  had  every  rea- 
son to  suppose  he  would  be  hotly  engaged  with  the 
enemy,  but  a  consistent  dramatic  explanation  can 
be  found  in  the  interpretation  now  ofifered. 

Othello,  when  he  appeared  before  the  Senate, 
feared  his  strange  marriage  would  prejudice  him, 
not  simply  as  a  man,  but  as  a  commander  of  the 
army.  His  most  strenuous  efforts  were  put  forth  to 
convince  the  senators  that  it  would  not  unfit  him 
for  military  responsibility  and  duty  to  have  Des- 
demona  with  him.  He  used  his  greatest  emphasis 
in  refuting  this  suspicion,  and  for  the  lime  at  least 
he  met  with  entire  success.  His  tale  of  poetic  love 
carried  the  senators  off  their  feet,  and  they  gave 
hearty  consent  that  Desdemona  should  accompany 
the  Moor  to  the  front.  This  conclusion  was 
reached  after  hearing  the  avowals  of  both  Othello 
and  Desdemona  and  while  under  the  spell  which  the 
personal  presence  of  the  pair  produced.  But  did 
the  senators  continue  in  that  satisfied  belief  after  the 


178  THE   OTHELLO. 

two  were  gone  and  that  wondrous  tale  of  poetic 
love  was  no  longer  sounding  in  their  ears?  Just 
as  the  action  is  such  as  to  keep  the  reader  or  spec- 
tator in  some  passing  doubt,  to  make  him 
feel  some  qualms  of  suspense,  about  the  pair 
living  up  to  Othello's  high  resolve,  opposed 
as  it  is  by  Desdemona,  so  it  is  reason- 
able to  think  of  misgivings  stealing  over  the 
senators  after  Othello  and  Desdemona  had  g*one. 
The  signiors  were  the  high  judges  of  the  state,  and 
if  swept  from  their  accustomed  calm  by  Othello's 
eloquent  and  picturesque  tale  of  love,  they  would 
soon  recover  their  severe  judicial  habit  and  ask 
whether  good  could  come  of  this  marriage,  whether 
they  had  net  given  too  hasty  approval.  Th'at  fear 
once  started  would  be  sure  to  grow.  Brabantio 
continued  to  regard  the  marriage  as  abhorrent,  and 
soon  after  died  of  a  broken  heart — an  ill  omen 
surely  for  a  daughter's  happiness. 

If  the  high  idealism  of  the  marriage  failed,  would 
it  not  fall  to  the  opposite  extreme?  What,  then, 
would  be  the  effect  upon  Othello?  Should  com- 
mand be  left  to  a  black  general  involved  in  the 
honeymoon  of  a  mcsalUance?  Would  there  be  no 
anxiety  over  an  officer  charged  with  critical  com- 
mand who  had  just  entered  into  an  unnatural  mar- 
riage? That  his  "  disports  "  might  ''  corrupt  his 
business  "  was  certainly  a  natural  second  thought 
with  Othello's  worthy  and  approved  good  masters, 
and,  as  such  a  fear  came  to  them  with  mature  re- 
flection, they  hastened  to  order  his  recall.  The  re- 
call of  Othello  is  no  oversight  in  Shakespeare,  but 


BRABANTiaS  SEVERITY.  179 

gives  another  evidence  of  his  art  as  we  see  him 
weaving  the  unnatural  marriage  into  the  warp  and 
woof  of  the  drama  in  triple  threads — one  from  the 
platonic,  one  from  the  base  conception  of  lago,  one 
from  the  doubts  of  agitated  and  anxious  well-wish- 
ers. The  senators,  like  ourselves,  convinced  at 
first,  cannot  avoid  recurring  doubt  whether  Othello 
is  not  attempting  the  impossible.  Such  is  the 
solution  of  a  difficulty  in  the  "  Othello  "  left  here- 
tofore without  a  shadow  of  acceptable  explanation. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

UlSTTYING  A  DRAMATIC  KNOT. 

An  independent  or  additional  confirmation  of  the 
motif  which  I  see  in  the  ''  Othello  "  is  supplied  by 
the  "  double  time  "  of  the  piece — a  feature  long  in- 
volved in  peculiar  difficulty.  While  modern  play- 
goers were  first  to  stick  at  the  trouble  of  Othello's 
color,  the  seeming  disaccord  in  the  dramatic  time  of 
the  piece  usually  aflfects  the  reader  only,  and  it  is 
even  doubtful  whether  listeners  sitting  at  the  play 
would  ever  have  discovered  it,  so  rapidly  and  ab- 
sorbingly are  they  hurried  along  in  the  sweep  of  the 
action.  /Even  the  patient  students  who  labor  to  dis- 
joint the  piece  and  then  articulate  the  scenes  and 
incidents  were  slow  to  penetrate  into  the  astound- 
ing fact  of  only  one  night — and  that  the  one  of  the 
nuptial  celebration — intervening  between  the  ar- 
rival at  Cyprus  and  the  culmination  of  the  murder 
of  Desdemona  by  the  Moor.  Obviously  there  can 
be  no  reason  or  probability  in  a  devoted  wife  being 
seduced  from  her  husband  within  twenty-fourjiours 
after  the  beginning  of  her  wedded  lite,  ana  the  mys- 
tery is  heightened  by  strangely  contradictory  allu- 
sions which  indirectly  but  certainly  cast  upon  the 
mind  the  impression  of  a  considerable  period  of 
time  having  pas'sed  after  the  marriage  and  before 
the  climax  of  the  tragic  jealousy  and  rage.     Thus 

z8o 


UNTYING  A    DRAMATIC  KNOT.  l8l 

Othello  speaks  of  the  act  of  shame  as  being  "  a 
thousand  times  committed,"  Emilia  tells  us  her  hus- 
band had  "  a  hundred  times  "  woo'd  her  to  steal  the 
handkercher,  and  with  liberal  allowance  for  col- 
loquial  and  poetic  license  these  expressions  must 
still  impress  ii§  With  a  beliei  6\  a.  considerable  period 
of  wedded  life  at  Cyprus  before  the  culmination  of 
jealousy.  Seizing  upon  these  singular  and  contra- 
dictory expressions,  and  struggling  against  the 
clear  time-movement  indicative  of  one  day  only  at 
Cyprus,  several  commentators  have  put  forth 
strained  efforts  to  suppose  the  lapse  of  a  period  of 
time  sufficient  for  the  growth  or  development  of  a 
post-nuptial  jealousy — have  arbitrarily  supposed 
"  long  time  at  Venice  after  the  marriage,"  although 
the  elopement,  the  trial  scene,  and  the  embarking 
occur  on  the  same  night;  or  have  tried  to  find 
proofs  of  a  "  long  time  at  Cyprus  after  marriage  " 
with  equal  ill  'success,  the  wiser  readers  concluding 
to  accept  the  simple  fact  of  the  double  time  move- 
ment without  trying  to  explain  how  it  is  accom- 
plished, but  confident  Shakespeare's  "  two  clocks  " 
are  those  of  an  artist,  not  a  blunderer. 

Professor  Wilson  offered  the  plausible,  although 
incidentally  repulsive,  suggestion  that  we  cannot 
think  of  Othello  throwing  his  arms  about  the  dis- 
robed bosom  of  Desdemona  night  after  night  while 
having  jealous  suspicion  in  his  heart;  and  hence  the 
action  had  to  forge  ahead  without  even  a  single 
night  of  marital  life  intervening.  Mrs.  Clarke  ten- 
dered an  explanation  which  is  barely  plausible  at 
first  glance,  and  certainly  cannot  sustain  the  test  of 


1 82  THE   OTHELLO, 

analysis.  She  thinks  Shakespeare  ''  had  to  give  the 
brief  effect  of  recent  marriage  consequent  upon  the 
elopement  and  secret  espousals  which  occur  in 
the  opening  of  the  play;  and  he  had  also  to  give 
the  lengthened  effect  of  conjugal  union,  in  order  to 
add  to  the  tragic  impression  of  broken  wedded  faith 
and  destroyed  wedded  happiness."  Rather  should 
it  be  thought  that  as  the  full  conjugal  meeting  of 
black  and  white  is  a  thing  of  aversion  and  repul- 
sion, even  with  the  sanction  of  law  and  religion, 
and  with  no  attending  serpent  of  jealous  mistrust, 
we  should  expect  a  dramatic  artist  to  make  every 
effort  to  condense  the  time,  or  use  some  other  de- 
vice to  take  away  all  opportunity  for  such  a  union 
to  be  brought  to  completion  before  the  tragic  end. 
If  some  hard  necessity  had  compelled  Shakespeare 
to  deal  with  a  conjugal  union  doubly  offensive,  be- 
cause between  opposing  races  and  because  extend- 
ing over  a  time  when  the  husband's  heart  was  full 
of  suspicion,  he  could,  if  forced  to  a  task  so  inartis- 
tic, have  denoted  the  fact  of  a  consummated  rela- 
tionship by  something  clearly  indicating  long  time 
after  the  marriage  either  at  Cyprus  or  Venice.  In- 
stead he  has  not  merely  failed  to  indicate  an  estab- 
lished wedded  relation,  but  has  dovetailed  the  piece 
against  any  such  assumption  on  our  part — a  con- 
struction thoroughly  inexplicable  unless  it  was  the 
intent  to  guard  Desdemona's  supreme  chasteness 
by  closing  every  hour  and  scene  against  the  possi- 
bility alike  of  guilt  with  Cassio  on  the  one  hand  or 
of  a  consummated  marriage  with  the  black  husband 
on  the  other. 


UNTYING*  A   DRAMATIC  KNOT.  183 

Quite  different  is  the  view  taken  heretofore  of  the 
close  sequence  of  the  drama.  William  Archer,  the 
eminent  English  dramatic  critic,  in  an  article  in  St. 
James  in  1881,  really  first  formulated  the  conclu- 
sion of  Desdemona  being  kept  so  constantly  in  her 
husband's  eye  and  company  as  to  make  actual  guilt 
with  Cassio  a  physical  impossibility.  The  hurried 
nature  of  the  action  was  not  first  disclosed  by  him, 
as  he  seemed  to  think,  for  it  had  been  reviewed 
elaborately  by  others,  especially  Professor  Wilson; 
but  Archer  was  the  first  to  reach  the  momentous 
conclusion  of  the  scenes  being  so  closely  woven  and 
dovetailed  as  seemingly  to  cut  off  all  possibility  of 
guilt  from  Desdemona,  and  leave  Othello  where  he 
must  know  the  charge  against  her  was  a  physical 
impossibility.  It  was  unfortunate  that  so  striking 
a  discovery  should  be  incomplete  and  be  under- 
valued by  the  writer  who  made  it — treated  as  a 
proof  of  fault  in  Shakespeare  instead  of  a  new  and 
brilliant  display  of  his  art.  Archer  unfortunately 
gave  adherence  to  the  idea  of  the  *'  Othello  "  being 
not  only  inferior  to  Shakespeare's  other  tragedies, 
but  in  unaccountable  and  unworthy  contrast  to 
them  in  having  an  ill-constructed,  unpoetic  plot,  or, 
as  a  still  later  critic  puts  it,  presenting  "  a  return  to 
convention."  Coinciding  with  this  view,  and 
adding  the  more  demeaning  one  of  Othello's  jeal- 
ousy being  that  of  a  fool,  Archer  could  only  think 
he  had  found  an  additional  proof  of  loose,  careless, 
inartistic,  unworthy  construction  when  he  showed 
how  Shakespeare  placed  Othello  where,  of  his  own 
observation,  he  knew  Desdemona  must  be  inno- 


1 84  THE   OTHELLO, 

cent,  and  yet  had  the  insane  folly  to  treat  her  as 
guilty. 

Archer's  conclusion  or  analysis  is  a  dangerous 
half-truth.  Correct  to  an  extent,  and  so  important 
as  to  rank  justly  as  a  brilliant  extension  of  Shakes- 
pearean study,  it  is  yet  an  analysis  which  will  not 
itself  stand  ultimate  analysis.  The  fatal  defect  is 
that  it  covers  and  accounts  for  the  hours  only  of 
daylight  or  common  waking,  showing  indeed  there 
could  have  been  in  that  time  no  possible  oppor- 
tunity for  guilt,  as  Othello  must  certainly  have 
known;  but  failing  of  completeness  because  there  is 
not  the  slightest  reason  to  suppose  Othello's  sus- 
picions were  directed  toward  the  interval  between 
dawn  and  bedtime,  where  the  dramatic  sequence  is 
so  close-woven  as  to  leave  no  possible  opportunity 
for  Desdemona's  guilt.  To  suspect  guilt  as  occur- 
ring in  the  daytime  would  be  a  gross  absurdity  in 
Othello;  no  such  idea  occurs  or  can  occur  to  him. 
His  suspicion  is  directed  from  the  first  to  tb^  ^^W"^ 
ot  night  and  to  them  exclusively,  and  it  g<^  |^p|ppetiQ 
they  are  tfte  precise  hours  not  brought  into  Archer's 
analysis,  but  thoughtlessly  glossed  over  with  the 
unproved  and  unprovable  assumption  of  Othello 
being  all  that  time  with  Desdemona.  If  so,  her 
guilt  with  Cassio  is  impossible;  Othello  knows  that 
to  be  true;  his  suspicion  is  irrational;  his  jealousy 
imbecile,  and  the  whole  plot  a  thing  of  wretched 
degradation,  not  poetic  art. 

Desdemona's  life  in  daylight  is  so  cut  ofif  from  all 
possible  guilt  that  the  Moor  has  to  look,  does  look, 
and  can  only  look,  to  the  night-time  as  supplying 


UNTYING  A   DRAMATIC  KNOT.  1 85 

opportunity;  and  thus  a  fine  double  stroke  is 
achieved,  for  the  same  suggestions  which  show  him 
fixing  the  scene  of  guilt  in  Desdemona's  bridal 
chamber  in  the  night  necessarily  attest  his  absence 
at  that  time.  Then,  too,  he  always  places  the  guilt 
at  such  time  and  place  that  Emilia  must  have 
known  it,  and  indeed  have  aided  and  abetted  it  as 
"  the  closet  lock  and  key."  Guilt  at  a  time  and 
place  where  this  woman  of  the  bedchamber  would 
not  know  it  he  never  thinks  of  as  possible.  Power- 
ful dramatic  work  this.  lago  says  Cassio  has  con- 
fessed, giving  the  utmost  details  of  time  and 
scene — 

"Where,  how,  how  oft,  how  long  ago,  and  when." 

This  broad  and  sweeping  claim  of  opportunities 
does  not  seem  to  Othello  in  the  least  incredible,  as 
it  surely  would  if  it  referred  to  them  as  existing  in 
daylight.  On  the  contrary,  he  at  once  feels  that 
the  claimed  opportunities  meet  the  test  of  his  own 
knowledge  rs  to  the  ones  which  may  have  been  had 
at  night  with  Emilia's  connivance.  ''  Now  he  tells 
how  she  plucked  him  to  my  chamber."  That  could 
not  have  been  in  the  day,  for  Othello  knew  of  Des- 
demona's every  act  from  dawn  to  darkness.  And  it 
could  have  been  possible  at  night  only  in  case 
Othello  was  absent  from  Desdemona's  chamber. 
It  is  because  of  his  assured  and  certain  absence 
Othello  thinks  the  nuptial  chamber  was  chosen  as 
the  scene  of  guilt.  He  never  speaks  of  any  other 
place  as  possible.  Thus  we  get  the  double  effect 
of  Othello's  absence  being  denoted  more  strongly 


l86  THE   OTHELLO, 

than  before;  and  the  agony  of  the  Moor  is  intensi- 
fied with  the  belief  that  the  place  he  had  kept  so 
religiously  sacred  is  used  by  foul  perversion  as  the 
safest  of  all  for  his  dishonor.  Alas,  that  such  con- 
summate art  has  gone  so  long  unseen  and  unappre- 
ciated. 

Othello's  conviction  of  guilty  opportunity  being 
found  in  his  own  nuptial  chamber  at  night  is  at- 
tested further  by  the  punishment  he  fixes  for  the 
crime.     When  lago  suggests  that  he  shall  strangle 
Desdemona  "  even  in  the  bed  she  hath  contaml^ 
nated,"  he  cries   "  Jjpod,  good— the  justice  of  it 
I      pleases;  very  good."     It  is  the  particular  bed  which 
1    "t§""^WF"*spoS:'en     of — rightfully    if    not     actually 
]      Othello's  own — just  as  it  was  his  rightful  if  not  ac- 
1     tual  chamber.     And  again  as  he  goes  to  slay  her 
I     he  vows  that  "the  bed  lust  stain'd  shall  with  lust's 
I    blood  be  spotted  " — a  most  piteous  specific  avowal 
I    to  us  who  know  that  same  bed  was  ever  innocent 
I   as  the  virginal  wedding  sheets  put  upon  it  at  last 
I  for  Othello. 

\  Right  here  we  have  another  of  the  significant 
lalterations  Shakespeare  made  in  adapting  his  plot 
from  the  old  Italian  tale.  Cinthio  provides  many 
opportunities  for  the  supposed  guilt  of  Desdemona 
to  be  repeated,  and  the  ancient,  in  his  account  of 
Cassio's  pretended  confession,  quotes  him  thus  to 
the  Moor:  "  He  says  he  has  enjoyed  your  wife  every 
time  that  you  have  stayed  long  enough  from  home 
to  give  him  an  opportunity."  Shakespeare  narrows 
the  time  and  scenes  to  make  us  see  Desdemona  so 
closely  under  the  eye  of  Qthello  that  the  Moor  must 


UNTYING  A   DRAMATIC  KNOT,  1 87 

know  the  only  possible  opportunity  for  guilt  is  in 
the  night  and  at  the  time  of  his  own  voluntary  self- 
exclusion  from  the  bridal  chamber,  thus  flashing 
upon  us  the  double  revelation  of  Desdemona's  vir- 
ginity sacredly  preserved  and  of  the  Moor's  suffer- 
ing being  keyed  beyond  mere  jealousy  into  moral 
agony.  Love  yielding  up  its  hearted  throne  within 
the  time  of  the  honeymoon,  and  usurping  wrong 
taking  its  place  in  the  bridal  chamber  itself,  and  at 
a  time  when  that  scene  was  made  doubly  sacred  by 
the  self-exclusion  of  the  rightful  husband — where 
in  all  tragedy  is  there  a  situation  more  poignant  or 
piteous  than  this,  as  it  pressed  with  tragic  force 
upon  the  great-hearted  barbarian? 

What  possible  purpose,  other  than  the  one  now 
suggested,  could  Shakespeare  have  had  in  so  clos- 
ing the  scenes  together  as  to  render  it  as  impossible 
for  Desdemona's  delicacy  to  be  blurred  in  marriage 
as  for  her  virtue  to  be  stained  outside  it?  But  what 
masterly  skill  it  is  which  limits,  hedges  in,  cuts 
down,  and  restricts  the  action  within  such  hours 
that  every  opportunity  for  stain  or  guilt  upon  Des- 
demona  is  excluded  by  being  otherwise  accounted 
for  and  checked  off  in  our  minds,  while  in  the  mind 
of  Othello  we  see  one  opening  left  for  suspicion  and 
self-deception — an  opening  which,  like  a  burning- 
glass,  concentrates  his  fears  to  a  focus  at  the  pre- 
cise point  where  the  agony  is  most  acute!  The 
brief,  hurried  action  which  impresses  our  minds 
with  no  time  or  opportunity  for  either  the  stain  of 
guilt  or  the  blot  of  indelicacy  upon  Desdemona, 
and  with  the  only  chance  in  the  mind  of  Othello 


1 88  THE   OTHELLO. 

being  the  one  created  by  his  own  chaste  absence, 
presents  one  of  the  finest  dramatic  situations  ever 
conceived  by  genius.  Shakespeare  did  not  plan  to 
reach  this  effect  through  the  critical  dissection  of 
his  plot,  but  by  the  artistic  illusion  it  should  pro- 
duce; hence  the  construction  is  logical,  not  to  the 
last  analysis,  but  to  the  point  needful  for  the  dra- 
matic impression. 

Shakespeare  did  not  intend  the  detail  of  only 
one  night  at  Cyprus  and  the  development  o»f  the 
jealousy  in  a  single  day  to  be  visible,  and  it  is 
likely  this  construction  would  never  have  been  un- 
covered if  it  had  been  left  to  be  dealt  with  exclu- 
sively by  the  one  class  for  w^hich  Shakespeare  wrote 
— the  listeners  at  the  play.  Upon  them  the  illusion 
was  perfect;  the  old  playgoers  who  knew  the  hyme- 
neal symbolism  had  the  spirit  which  giveth  life,  not 
the  letter  which  killeth.  Without  conscious  analysis 
they  felt  that  the  brief  time  after  marriage,  with  the 
scenes  of  Desdemona's  life  all  accounted  for  finally 
and  with  nuptial  suggestions  yet  resting  upon  her, 
effectually  negatived  a  consummated  marriage  with 
Othello,  and  yet  the  action  was  relieved  of  any  ap- 
pearance of  undue  haste  or  crowding.  To  avoid 
an  excess  or  over-strain  in  the  closeness  and  tense- 
ness of  the  action,  Shakespeare  relieves  it  by  occa- 
sional passing  suggestions  of  long  time,  but  throws 
them  in  deftly  without  arousing  us  to  any  con- 
sciousness of  a  contradictory  or  disturbing  impres- 
sion. This  is  the  true  meaning  of  the  mystery  of 
the  long  and  short  time:  previous  theories,  by  con- 
senting to  long  time  for  a  hideous  consummation  of 


UNTYWG  A   DRAMATIC  KNOT.  189 

by  leaving  the  enforced  short  time  without  a  trace 
of  dramatic  need  or  purpose,  have  thrown  one  of 
the  noblest  situations  known  to  the  drama  into  a 
miserable  cloud  of  seeming  blundering  and  loose- 
ness of  construction. 

By  some  mighty  magic  or  witchcraft,  differing 
from  any  Brabantio  ever  dreamed  of,  Shakespeare 
makes  us  think  of  Othello  and  Desdemona  as  if 
married  for  some  considerable  time, — a  few  months 
at  least, — and  yet  never  lets  them  get  beyond  the 
peculiar  surroundings  and  suggestions  of  a  stayed 
nuptial  night.  The  last  glimpse  we  have  of  Des- 
demona, in  the  scene  immediately  before  the  one  of 
her  death,  shows  her  disclosed  to  us  in  a  bridal  dis- 
robing. Just  how  or  why  this  peculiar  effect  of 
bridal  or  nuptial  incompleteness  is  attained,  while 
the  impression  of  a  considerable  period  of  wedded 
life  having  elapsed  is  also  produced,  remains  a 
mystery  which  must  ever  be  felt  by  every  attentive 
student  of  the  play,  although  logically  accounted 
for  by  none.  We  have  simply  to  accept  the  fact 
of  such  impression  being  produced  upon  us  by  sug- 
gestions of  *'  long  time  after  marriage  "  on  the 
one  hand  and  fresh  hymeneal  strokes  on  the  other. 

Vastly  stronger  and  plainer  all  this  to  Shakes- 
peare's first  audiences,  as  they  caught  the  full  force 
and  meaning  of  the  hymeneal  symbolism.  Unlike 
the  benighted  playgoers  and  readers  of  later  days, 
the  audiences  of  Shakespeare's  time  were  quickly 
aflfected  by  the  freshening  hymeneal  allusions 
of  the  play.  Tliey  saw  something  of  import 
in    Othello    being    found    absent    from    his    bride 


190  THE  OTHELLO, 

at  midnight  and  but  an  hour  or  two  after 
the  ceremony  on  the  wedding  night;  some- 
thing significant  in  the  sudden  parting  and 
journey  to  Cyprus  with  bride  and  groom  in  sepa- 
rate ships;  something  in  Othello's  peculiar  speech 
to  Desdemona  at  the  door  of  the  nuptial  chamber; 
something  in  the  interruption  of  the  brawl  on  the 
nuptial  night,  disclosing  the  Moor  absent  from  his 
bride ;  something  in  his  examination  of  her  hand  to 
determine  the  nature  of  her  impulses  of  sex,  and 
something  of  surpassing  importance  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  the  bed  after  the  couple  had  been  some  time 
married,  and  yet  with  Desdemona  presenting  to  the 
Elizabethans  an  occasion  and  custom  of  wedding 
sheets,  which  in  their  time  and  their  minds  could 
denote  nothing  but  a  marriage  not  yet  consum- 
mated. Those  old  playgoers  never  made  a  com- 
plaint of  this  piece  as  lacking  in  artistic  construc- 
tion; it  was  their  greatest  favorite. 

There  is  no  falling  away  from  poetic  methods, 
no  "  return  to  convention,"  no  inexplicable  use  of 
inferior,  commonplace,  non-Shakespearean  de- 
velopment in  the  "  Othello,"  but  superb  art  instead. 
A  correct  interpretation  will  show  the  artistic  skill 
of  the  poet  tuned  here  in  a  higher  key  than  ever  be- 
fore, and  especially  in  the  double  impression  of 
Othello  and  Desdemona  as  if  married  for  some  time 
and  yet  with  nuptials  all  uncelebrated.  What  pos- 
sible device  could  have  been  better  adapted  to  help 
this  development  in  the  way  of  suggestive  dramatic 
touches  than  to  weave  the  scenes  of  daylight  to- 
gether, so  that  we  must  see  Othello  can  have  no 


UNTYING  A   DRAMATIC  KNOT.  IQI 

possible  ground  for  his  suspicions  unless  they  are 
referred  in  his  own  mind  to  the  times  and  hours  of 
night  as  the  only  ones  when  he  is  absent  from  his 
bride?  Viewed  in  that  way,  the  peculiar  construc- 
tion which  has  been  pronounced  grossly  irregular 
and  careless  is  a  device  of  consummate  art,  as  it  not 
only  helps  along  our  rising  dramatic  hope  of  Des- 
demona  being  what  Fletcher  termed  "  a  maiden 
wife,  a  wifely  maid,"  but  compels  us  to  see  the  in- 
voluntary suspicion  forcing  its  poison  roots  into  the 
tenderest  and  truest  place  in  Othello's  soul  as  his 
own  sacred  absence  appears  to  be  Cassio's  oppor- 
tunity. 

But  did  earlier  audiences  grasp  quickly  such 
depths  of  meaning  to  which  we  are  utterly  blind? 
Hymeneal  poetry  and  nuptial  celebrations  had  ac- 
customed them  to  watch  for  and  follow  the  post- 
nuptial events  of  married  life  with  eager  interest 
and  in  a  more  poetic  and  elevated  spirit  than  we  are 
apt  to  credit  at  first  thought.  That  was  the  time 
when  the  now-forgotten  hymeneal  poetry  was  in  the 
first  and  fullest  bloom  of  popularity.  iHence  no 
suggestion,  however  light,  which  grew  out  of  or 
touched  upon  the  events  of  a  nuptial  celebration, 
would  pass  unnoticed.  Weaving  his  plot  for  minds 
thus  prepared,  Shakespeare  determined  to  keep  the 
**  maiden  wife  "  with  the  hymenean  fresh  upon  her 
to  the  close,  when  she  was  to  die  "  in  her  virgin 
bed,"  and  hence  the  hints  and  suggestions  which 
hold  her  ever  within  the  atmosphere  of  approach- 
ing nuptials,  although,  as  on  the  bridal  night,  we 
shudder  with  fear  for  her  and  are  then  suddenly. 


192  THE  OTHELLO. 

gloriously  relieved.  Appreciating  and  understand- 
ing every  light  touch  of  nuptial  suggestion  as  we 
cannot,  Shakespeare's  early  audiences  were  stirred 
with  mingled  hope  and  pathos  that  a  thing  so  holy 
and  beautiful  as  the  platonic  marriage  should  be 
fated  to  develop,  not  into  brightness,  but  piteous 
tragic  woe.  Seeing  Othello  subjected  to  the  strain 
of  a  supposed  awful  wrong,  and  knowing  the  eyes 
of  the  Moor  were  fastened  upon  holiest  hours  as 
the  ones  presenting  basest  opportunity,  the  early 
playgoers  had  to  pity  him  even  as  they  pitied  the 
fairer  victim. 

Archer's  notable  discovery  or  analysis,  when 
properly  applied,  is  simply  one  more  proof  added 
to  the  many  which  have  broken  down  the  old  idea 
of  Shakespeare  as  careless  in  plot,  and  proved  him 
instead  careful  and  artistic  beyond  rivalry.  As 
Moulton  says,  Shakespeare  **  elevated  the  whole 
conception  of  plot."  Modern  scholarship  tends 
strongly  to  the  opinion  of  his  greatest  effect  upon 
the  drama  being,  not  in  his  poetry,  but  in  the  im- 
mense improvement  he  effected  in  the  art  of  weav- 
ing the  plot.  Few  better  evidences  of  this  need  be 
asked  than  the  construction  which  forces  the  lis- 
tener to  look  with  Othello's  eyes  and  find  the  food 
and  soil  of  suspicion  in  those  scenes  and  hours 
of  night  which  to  him  show  a  chance  for  guilt, 
but  most  truthfully  and  piteously  disclose  to  us 
the  sacred  absence  and  abstinence  which  Othello 
wrongly  thought  foully  abused. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

desdemona's  fault  and  fate. 

As  we  have  seen,  if  Othello  is  whitened  into  a 
proper  husband  for  Desdemona,  there  remains  no 
reason  why  she  should  not  have  married  him ;  hence 
no  dramatic  motive  for  hurrying  her  on  to  a  tragic 
doom.  Her  death  at  Othello's  hands  imperatively 
requires  that  she  must  have  done  wrong  in  mar- 
rying him.  Only  so  can  we  find  what  the  Germans 
tall  the  "  logical  justification  "  for  her  dreadful  fate. 
With  neither  Othello  nor  Desdemona  is  there  any 
offense  against  conscience;  but  Shakespeare  often 
and  justly  makes  mistakes  mortal.  A  man  of 
Othello's  temperament,  constitution,  and  years 
could  not  lead  a  celibate  life  in  constant  association 
with  a  blooming  young  Venetian  wife.  In  his  own 
language,  he  tempted  Heaven  in  his  impossible 
struggle;  he  undermined  his  own  sense  of  content 
and  trust  and  fell  at  last  a  victim  to  his  fatal  mis- 
take. But  what  of  Desdemona?  A  celibate  life 
might  have  been  no  impossible  thing  for  her;  but 
if  she  had  entered  into  marriage  expecting  or  in- 
tending only  such  a  union,  there  would  remain  the 
question  of  wrong  to  the  virile  Othello  in  requiring 
of  him  a  husband's  duties  without  allowance  of  a 
husband's  dues.  But  we  are  not  required  to  deal 
with  that  difficulty;  for  Shakespeare  provides  clear 


194  THE   OTHELLO. 

proof  of  Othello  alone  intending  the  non-consum- 
mation, and  denotes  a  contrary  expectation  in  the 
mind  of  Desdemona  from  the  first. 

The  two  expressions  which  show  that  Desdemona 
expected  a  consummated  union  are,  for  the  sake  of 
her  delicacy,  oblique,  indirect,  seemingly  accidental, 
yet  sufficiently  clear  and  plain.  Thus  she  uncon- 
sciously betrays  the  expectation  in  her  mind  of  a 
complete  union  with  Othello  when,  in  talking  to 
Cassio  and  telling  how  she  will  beset  her  lord  on 
his  behalf,  she  gayly  declares  **  his  bed  shall  seem  a 
school."  There  shall  he  get  his  curtain  lectures 
and  petitions  on  behalf  of  Cassio.  She  is  thinking 
and  talking  only  of  Cassio,  but  betrays  her  belief 
that  Othello's  absence  from  her  chamber  is  not  to 
be  permanent.  She  took  the  wedding  sheets  with 
her  when  she  eloped,  and  orders  them  put  on  her 
couch  when  Othello  at  last  comes  to  her  chamber, 
as  she  thinks  to  consummate  the  marriage,  really 
to  take  her  life.  But  before,  in  the  fourth  act,  when 
Othello  asks  in  towering  rage  if  she  is  not  a  wanton, 
she  had  replied: 

"  If  to  preserve  this  vessel  for  my  lord 
From  any  other  foul,  unlawful  touch 
Be  not  to  be  a  strumpet,  I  am  none." 

That  is  just  what  she  has  been  doing — preserv- 
ing the  vessel  for  her  lord.  And  therein  lies  her 
tragic  fault.  From  the  standpoint  of  daily  life  and 
society  no  sentiment,  no  purity  of  motive  could 
render  it  right  for  Desdemona  to  devote  herself 
physically  to  Othello  and  invite  hybrid  offspring. 


DESDEMONA'S  FAULT  AND  FATE.  195 

Expecting  and  consenting  to  such  a  relation,  how* 
ever  innocently  and  half  consciously,  she  is  exposed, 
despite  the  wondrous  beauty  of  her  nature,  to  the 
full  force  of  Adams'  jeer  when  he  asks  who  would 
want  her  for  a  daughter  or  a  sister.  She  makes  a 
fatal  mistake.  Shakespeare  preserves  her  from  car- 
rying out  her  intent;  she  never  loses  her  hold  upon 
our  sympathies;  but  while  her  fault  is  beautifully 
extenuated  by  pure  and  unselfish  motives,  we  can- 
not but  think  she  erred  fatally  and  invited  disaster 
in  marrying  with  "  the  black  Othello,"  intending 
and  expecting  the  union  tO'  be  consummated,  al- 
though without  a  full  realization  of  all  that  marriage 
with  a  blackamoor  implied.  h  ^  (^ — 

Othello  and  Desdemona  threw  themselves  de- 
liberately against  nature's  barrier  of  race:  he,  think- 
ing to  do  more  than  such  a  man  could;  she,  more 
than  such  a  woman  ever  should.  Their  expecta- 
tions were  divergent  and  opposing;  but  it  would  be 
hard  to  say  which  was  the  more  unnatural.  Both 
invited,  provoked,  disaster.  It  is  not  in  nature  for 
white  and  black  to  intermarry  in  their  situation  and 
not  challenge  calamity  in  some  form. 

Desdemona's  error  is  beautifully  and  pathetically 
palliated,  but  never  wiped  out.  She  had  perhaps  at 
first  only  a  somewhat  vague  idea  of  marital  rela- 
tions, but  a  clear  consciousness  of  her  awful  mistake 
fell  upon  her  when  she  was  brought  near,  as  she 
thought,  to  fruition.  Then  came  her  argument  and 
forced  self-assurance  that  it  was  "  meet,  very  meet  " 
she  should  be  used  so.  Alas,  were  that  indeed  true, 
Desdemona  had  no  need  to  try  to  reassure  and  en- 


196  THE    OTHELLO. 

courage  herself.  Nor  could  she  have  felt  the 
strange  dread,  as  of  fearful  impending  calamity, 
which  came  over  her  when  she  began  to  disrobe 
herself  and  thought  of  her  maiden  wedding  sheets 
being  turned  to  shrouds.  This  bridal  disrobing, 
with  its  freezing  fear  and  dread — how  different  it  is 
from  the  banter,  gayety,  and  chaff  usually  marking 
such  scenes  in  the  Elizabethan  drama.  Already 
Desdemona  is  feeling,  if  she  does  not  realize  or  ad- 
mit, some  of  the  consequences  of  her  fearful  error. 
It  is  true  Othello  would  never  have  permitted  her 
to  consummate  the  union  as  she  desperately  in- 
tended, but,  barred  from  false  physical  devotion, 
she  was  still  guilty  of  a  wrong  to  herself  and  to  the 
Moor. 

Desdemona  did  a  great  wrong  indeed  to  Othello. 
Her  advances  led  him  into  fatal  marriage;  when  he 
then  attempted  heroically  to  overcome  the  essential 
vice  of  the  union  by  keeping  it  platonic,  his  situa- 
tion was  one  of  unnatural  and  unendurable  strain. 
Uneasy,  anxious,  strained,  the  doors  of  Othello's 
soul  were  thrown  open  for  invading  doubts.  With 
Desdemona  it  was  different,  but  she  could  not  have 
been  permanently  content  or  safe  in  the  unconsum- 
mate  marriage,  even  if  there  had  been  no  lago  and 
Othello  had  not  been  moved  to  mistrust.  The  celi- 
bate life  must  be  led  under  conditions  and  circum- 
stances fit  for  celibacy. ylf  Desdemona  had  lived 
long  such  a  life  while  married  to  Othello,  every  day 
her  yearning  to  pay  the  full  and  absolute  tribute  of 
love  would  have  been  checked,  denied,  turned  awry, 
until  she  must  have  fe|t  the  power  of  temptation  to- 


DESDEMONA'S  FAULT  AND  FATE.         197 

ward  one  of  her  own  race  in  a  way  she  could  never 
have  been  tried  as  a  maiden.  Desdemona  could 
not  have  been  happy  as  a  wife  without  rendering 
the  final  sacrifice  of  wifehood.  She  exposed  her- 
self to  suspicion  as  no  woman  should  ever  do;  to 
temptation  as  none  should  ever  dare.  The  incred- 
ible and  improbable  thing  was  that  she  could  be 
long  content  in  the  unnatural  marriage.  It  would 
have  been  wrong  for  her  to  accept  Othello;  it  was 
almost  equally  wrong  to  live  with  him  in  unnatural 
denial  and  aloofness,  both  being  in  the  full  strength 
of  the  reproductive  age  and  state.  Nemesis  was 
due,  first,  for  Desdemona,  who  in  her  weakness  had 
invoked  the  whole  calamity,  and  then  upon  Othello, 
who  had  yielded  to  her  suggestion  of  marriage  and 
afterward  sought  all  too  late  to  rectify  the  blunder 
by  superhuman  and  impossible  denial. 

In  what  other  way  can  we  ever  reconcile  the  fear- 
ful doom  to  which  the  lovely  Desdemona  is 
brought?  To  suppose  her  actually  devoted  to 
Othello  supplies  indeed  ample  dramatic  reason  for 
her  death  at  the  hands  of  her  black  husband,  but  it 
unfits  both  him  and  her  for  rational  sympathy,  ruins 
the  action,  wrecks  the  whole  play.  It  cannot  be. 
The  text,  the  situation,  the  characterization,  the  side 
lights  and  fore  lights  of  Shakespeare's  day  all  point 
unerringly  to  a  quasi  or  arrested  marriage,  but 
with  an  intent  on  Desdemona's  part — happily  in- 
hibited— to  devote  herself  fully  to  the  Moor,  as  sup- 
plying the  reason  for  her  taking  of¥. 

At  first,  and  for  a  brief  time,  Desdemona's  in- 
stincts showed  her  truly  the  wrong  of  marrying 


1 98  THE  OTHELLO. 

with  Othello.  That  she  did  "  shake  and  fear  "  the 
looks  of  the  Moor  even  when  "  she  lov'd  them 
most "  is  proof  not  of  dissimulation,  as  has  been 
so  often  asserted,  but  that  she  tried  instinctively  to 
avoid  this  strange  love  or  to  blind  her  eyes  to  it, 
even  as  she  did  those  of  her  father,  "  close  as  oak." 
It  was  not,  as  lago  said,  a  seeming  that  compelled 
Desdemona  to  tremble  as  this  love  stole  upon  her; 
it  was  a  sense  of  unfitness,  unnaturalness.  Unhap- 
pily the  hesitation  was  but  for  an  hour.  As  the 
noble  nature  of  the  Moor  was  unfolded  before  her 
the  die  was  soon  cast;  Desdemona  put  away  every 
doubt  and  fear  and  thereafter  knew  naught  but  love, 
confidence,  and  trust. 

Desdemona's  fault  is  so  plain  we  can  never  deny 
that  her  fate  was  invited  by  her  own,act.  The  mar- 
riage into  which  she  rushed  so  ill-advisedly  could 
not  come  to  good,  only  bring  her  to  disillusionment 
and  calamity  one  way  or  another. 

Usually  Shakespeare's  sympathies  are  all  with 
lovers.  He  helps  them  conquer  the  opposition  of 
parents,  society,  and  frowning  fortune,  but  it  is 
clear  that  he  draws  a  line  where  the  marriage  is 
essentially  in  conflict  with  the  proprieties  of  the 
family  and  cannot  culminate  naturally  and  properly 
in  family  life.  The  great,  final  justification  is  then 
lacking.  Shakespeare  would  have  gladly  helped 
Othello  and  Desdemona  triumph  over  any  opposi- 
tion of  Brabantio  which  sprang  from  mere  pride  or 
ambition ;  over  any  antagonism  of  Venetian  society 
based  on  the  desire  of  a  "  noble  match  "  for  Des- 
demona.    But  with  his  views  of  family  life,  and  his 


DESDEMONA'S  FAULT  AND  FATE.         I99 

principle  of  judging  actions  and  relations  by  the  re- 
sults to  which  they  must  lead,  he  could  never  be 
blinded  by  sentiment  into  approving  a  marriage 
which  could  produce  only  a  mixed  offspring  and 
hybrid  family.  Yet  Shakespeare  no  sooner  demon- 
strates the  fault  of  the  marriage  and  fastens  it  upon 
our  minds  never  to  be  removed,  than  he  demon- 
strates anew  how  nobly  blind  Othello  and  Desde- 
mona  were  to  the  error.  Desdemona's  sad  mis- 
take springs  from  no  selfishness,  but  from  an  ex- 
travagance of  womanly  devotion.  Nor  is  there  any 
weak,  foolish  self-deception.  She  is  not  deceived 
in  the  least  about  the  true  character  of  the  Moor; 
she  sees  the  real  Othello  in  his  glorious  manhood 
and  whiteness  of  life  surpassing  all  the  men  she 
had  ever  known;  and  if  she  was  unmoved  by  other 
suitors,  she  could  only  hasten  to  lay  her  love  at  the 
feet  of  this  one,  telling  him  she  wished  "  heaven  had 
made  "  ''  such  a  man  "  for  her.  It  was  not,  as  so 
many  have  thought,  a  spirit  of  romance  and  love 
of  military  glory  that  swept  Desdemona  to  the 
Moor;  it  was  instinctive  appreciation  of  his  noble 
manhood  and  irresistible  womanly  response  to  it — ■ 
the  response  of  one  preternaturally  sensitive  to 
worth  in  the  opposite  sex,  and  so  super-refined  that 
she  could  sink  the  physical  in  the  mental,  com- 
pletely ignoring  Othello's  blood  and  color.  She 
was  impelled,  not  by  romance  or  imagination,  but 
by  a  quick-responding  sensibility  and  a  hunger  to 
render  a  woman's  devotion  to  Othello.  Desde- 
mona is  not  imaginative  like  Juliet,  with  a  mind 
flowing  forth   in  tropes   and  imagery.     Her  Ian- 


200  THE   OTHELLO. 

guage  is  extremely  simple.  "  My  dear  Othello  "  is 
her  greeting  after  the  long  separation  and  the  dan- 
gers of  the  ocean.  Only  once  does  she  speak  of 
Othello's  military  glory;  and  even  then  as  much 
stress  is  laid  upon  "  his  honors ''  as  upon  "his  val- 
iant parts."  She  is  not  love-sick,  not  a  victim  of 
infatuation,  but  inspired  by  true,  high-born,  unsel- 
fish, Womanly  devotion  to  a  man  most  worthy  of 
such  love  in  every  respect  save  one. 

Romantic  love  did  not  come  to  Desdemona  on  an 
enchanted  isle  of  the  sea,  nor  in  storm  or  shipwreck, 
nor  in  the  moonlight  night  when  the  nightingale 
sang  in  the  palm,  but  in  the  quiet  of  her  own  home 
she  was  surprised  while  engaged  in  her  household 
duties.  The  touch  of  home  and  home  life,  of 
domesticity  and  of  the  quiet,  well-bred,  womanly 
spirit,  prevents  us  thinking  for  a  moment  of  Desde- 
mona as  a  victim  of  intoxicated  fancy,  but  adds  to 
the  wonder  and  pity  of  her  love. 

Only  as  the  household  afifairs  were  dispatched 
would  Desdemona  return  to  listen  to  the  Moor. 
As  White  says,  we  need  not  think  Desdemona's 
care  for  the  magnificent  household  of  her  father 
ever  required  her  to  soil  the  tips  of  her  fingers,  but 
this  touch  of  refined,  high-class  domesticity  ought, 
I  think,  to  show  the  nature  of  a  long-prevalent 
error  and  prove  she  was  not  a  romantic  enthusiast 
or  a  recluse,  but  a  woman  both  of  the  world  and  the 
hom.e.  For  the  same  reason  Shakespeare  tells  us 
of  her  fondness  for  society  and  social  gayety — to 
cause  her  devotion  to  Othello  to  seem  most  strange, 
wonderful.     In  the  presence  of  everyone  but  the 


DESDEMONA'S  FAULT  AND  FATE.  201 

Moor,  Desdemona  is  queen  o'er  herself.  The  re- 
markable scene  on  landing  at  Cyprus,  so  gener- 
ally slurred  over  by  commentators,  shows  Des- 
demona as  a  woman  by  no  means  lacking 
in  worldly  wisdom,  buFTIever  enough  to  return 
"^Ifago's  banteFanSreven  get  the  best  of  him.  These 
touches  prove  how  wrong  it  is  to  think  of  Desde- 
mona as  an  excessively  romantic  maiden  or  a  re- 
cluse carried  away  by  tales  of  adventure  and  martial 
glory.  She  is  quite  different :  a  queenly,  self-poised 
young  woman  as  admirable  for  sagacious  judgment 
as  for  beauty  and  winsomeness,  but  suddenly  over- 
whelmed by  a  strange,  fatal,  yet,  in  every  sense  but 
one,  most  truthful  love.  Desdemona  was  not  de- 
ceived in  regard  to  the  Moor:  he  was  just  the  man 
she  thought  him,  and  it  is  surely  most  piteous  that 
this  gentle,  well-brea  maiden,  seeking  happiness 
only  in  the  home  and  the  family,  should  become 
the  victim  of  a  love  that  could  allow  her  neither 
family  nor  home — become  a  sacrifice  through 
her  own  unselfish  womanly  devotion  to  an 
upright  and  exalted  manhood.  And  yet,  as  the 
great  error  of  the  pair  is  so  touchingly  palliated,  we 
cannot  forget  that  marriage  stops  not  with  effect 
upon  the  mind,  but,  in  proceeding  to  procreation  of 
race,  imposes  conditions  of  fitness  in  blood  and 
color  which  not  even  the  soul  love  of  Othello  and 
Desdemona  could  defy. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE   ACTION. 

Wholly  rejecting  the  prevailing  theory  of  a  plot 
built  up  merely  to  show  the  skilled  malignancy  oi 
lago  in  duping  and  tricking  Othello,  with  little  or 
no  regard  to  other  issues,  repudiating  the  idea  of 
Shakespeare  subjecting  such  characters  as  Othello 
and  Desdemona  to  repulsively  brutal  vivisection  of 
soul  only  to  show  lago's  skill  in  that  way,  I  claim 
the  true  central  concept  is  in  the  great  picture  of 
upwardly  aberrant  sexual  love  presented  under 
startling,  contrasting,  changing  lights. 

How  tremendous  the  action  of  this  play  in  the 
full  force  of  the  whirling  contrasts  and  fearful  on- 
ward rush !  pif^^i  an  atmosphere  oi  beauty  and 
sweetness — an  opening  scene  in  "  Venice,  that 
mermaid  of  a  city,"  when  she  was  queen  of  the 
world — the  city  with  the  lions  and  the  pigeons, 
signifying  it  was  to  find  safety  in  valor  and  love. 
Once  before  Shakespeare  brought  us  here — on  the 
night  when  Jessica  stole  away  from  the  wealthy 
Jew;  and  he  comes  again  to  the  fair  scene  with 
another  tale  of  race-prejudice  and  race-discord 
showing  strange  on  such  a  background,  but  this 
time  with  a  Moor,  not  a  Jew — Othello  supplanting 
Shylock.  The  first  quick  turn  carries  us  from 
beauty  to  a  sense  of  repulsion  and  disgust.     lago 


THE  ACTION.  ^03 

sickens  and  nauseates  us  with  his  account  of  the 
union  Which  Desdemona  has  just  won  by  elopement 
— a  marital  state,  bestial,  animal-like,  suited  to  the 
procreation  of  animal  offspring, — with  the  Bar- 
bary  horse,  the  old  black  ram,  and  worse  similes 
still, — and  we  hear  with  pity  the  cry  of  the  heart- 
broken father  on  learning  his  daughter  has  gone 
with  the  "  lascivious  Moor."  ''  With  the  Moor, 
say'st  thou?"  Nauseating  surely  to  the  last  de- 
gree, but  if  we  expurgate  these  intolerable  expres- 
sions we  shall  fail  to  get  the  full  force  of  the  next 
contrast.  "  But  soft,  what  light  through  yon- 
der window  breaks?"  Against  lago's  foulness  we 
have  the  Moor's  own  account  of  the  matter — a 
story  of  poetic  beauty  such  as  not  even  Venice 
can  have  heard  before.  Angered  and  irritated  at 
first  by  the  glances  of  love  which  Desdemona  be- 
stows upon  the  swarth-shining  Ethiop,  sympathy 
and  interest  come  stealing  over  us  ere  we  are 
aware,  and  where  we  expected  only  vileness  and 
repulsion  we  see  one  of  the  world's  choicest  pic- 
tures of  love  and  romance.    - 

Against  all  the  aspersions  put  upon  him  as  a 
lusty  Moor,  as  a  user  of  foul  arts,  of  drugs  and 
witchcraft, mthello  unfolds  before  us  as  one  em- 
bodying the  most  admired  heroism  and  idealism  of 
the  Elizabethan  age — a  gallant  soldier  and  leader 
returned  from  distant  wars  and  adventures  in 
strange  lands,  yet  resting  under  the  clouds  of  early 
days.  And  as  we  look  into  the  sweet  and  delicate 
nature  of  Desdemona,  in  all  its  artless  innocence 
and  truth,  to  see  that  love  stirred  in  her  breast,  not 


204  THE  OTHELLO. 

through  illusion  or  delusion,  but  because  she  dis- 
cerned with  unerring  clearness  and  truth  the  regal 
manhood  of  Othello,  being  blind  only  to  his  color, 
our  sympathies  must  go  out  to  the  noble  pair,  and 
we  feel  that  here  is  a  marriage  of  poetic  purity  and 
beauty  beyond  the  tales  of  old  romance)  and  ap- 
proaching as  closely  as  unaided  human  power  may 
permit  to  that  of  Joseph  and  Mary. 

Summoned  to  a  heroism  greater  than  any  he  had 
shown  in  war,  Othello  responded,  renouncing  all 
tyranny  of  the  blood  and  binding  himself  to  the 
supreme  duty  of  conduct  free  and  bounteous  to 
Desdemona's  mind. 

Swept  by  storm  as  we  are  in  the  splendid  eleva- 
tion of  Othello's  pledge  of  renunciation,  we  are  not 
permitted  to  rest  satisfied  and  content  in  this  ex- 
altation. The  height  is  too  great;  the  atmos- 
phere too  rarefied.  With  our  weak  human  faith, 
waver  we  must;  and  as  we  fall  back  from  that  glo- 
rious burst  to  the  lower  key  of  the  drama  mis- 
givings steal  over  us.  May  we  not  have  overes- 
timated Othello?  May  he  not  have  overestimated 
himself?  Soothed  at  first  on  seeing  the  nature  of 
the  poetic  marriage,  and  the  fact  of  no  consumma- 
tion in  the  present,  we  are  agitated  and  alarmed 
when  we  turn  toward  the  future  and  think  of  what 
may  be  yet  to  come — of  hateful  miscegenation 
lurking,  specter-like,  near  at  hand. 

Hoping  for  some  better  and  worthier  outcome, 
conscious  there  can  be  no  compromise  or  make- 
shift, we  turn  back  to  Othello,  hearken  joyfully 
again  to  his  pledge  of  complete  renunciation,  and 


THE  ACTION.  205 

follow  the  dramatist  into  the  second  act  with 
breathless  interest  to  learn  whether  he  can  and 
whether  he  shall  make  that  promise  good — shall 
overcome  a  lurking  danger,  to  soft  Desdemona 
fatal  as  a  demon  or  a  dragon. 

Carried  from  our  feet,  even  as  were  the  senators, 
by  the  lofty  story  and  pledge  of  the  Moor,  we  also 
must  fiall  back  as  they  did  in  cooler  moments  to 
doubts,  to  fears.  Will  Othello  be  able  to  keep  his 
pledge?  Could  any  man  do  it  under  such  circum- 
stances of  temptation? 

Grand  beyond  the  manner  of  men,  beyond  all 
comparison,  as  Othello  has  been  in  the  making  of 
his  pledge,  must  we  not  'have  a  renewed  fear  that 
even  his  splendid  will  may  yet  give  way?  His  po- 
sition is  one  of  unnatural  strain,  for  which  God 
never  intended  such  a  man  leading  such  a  life  and 
with  no  restraint  save  what  came  from  the  mind. 
Certainly  unaided  mortal  strength  was  not  intended 
to  preserve  sudh  restraint  save  in  the  cloister  and 
the  celibate  life. 

So  even  before  a  cloud  rises  from  the  outside 
we  see  the  strain  telling  upon  the  Moor — behold 
his  resolutit)n  beset  by  revengeful  nature,  the  ten- 
sion being  none  the  less  severe  because  quietly 
borne.  His  extravagant  joy  on  greeting  Desde- 
mona after  an  absence  of  two  weeks  was  that  of  a 
man  wliose  natural  uneasiness  and  anxiety  over 
the  indecorum  and  irregularity  of  a  runaway  mar- 
riage had  been  increased  rather  than  soothed;  and 
his  furious  outburst  against  Cassio  on  the  nuptial 
night  was  that  of  one  already  sorely  tried,  even 


2o6  THE   OTHELLO. 

though  others  knew  it  not  and  he  himself  was 
hardly  conscious  of  the  cause. 

Later  we  behold  him  at  the  door  of  the  nuptial 
chamber  on  the  night  of  the  jubilee,  with  law  and 
religion  giving  sanction,  every  restraint  gone,  and 
the  very  air  pulsating  with  raptures,  dismissing 
Desdemona  to  the  aloofness  of  her  own  chamber. 
Can  we  ask  or  expect  even  Othello  to  withstand 
this  strain  day  by  day,  through  coming  weeks, 
months,  years?  Can  we  deem  him  equal  to  such 
a  pledge? 

As  a  glassblower  causes  the  glowing  ball  to  swell 
and  vary  in  startling  wonder  before  our  eyes — now 
promising  an  oblong,  now  a  square,  now  a  mount- 
ing taper,  now  a  globe — so  even  as  we  look,  hoping 
to  see  the  lurking  evil  of  miscegenation  overcome 
in  some  way,  yet  fearing  that  result  cannot  be 
reached,  there  supervenes  upon  the  poetic  mar- 
riage a  danger  unthought  of,  unforeseen,  rising 
from  without,  not  within — the  falsely  aroused  jeal- 
ousy of  Othello. 

Not  until  solicitude  over  Desdemona's  fate  in 
marriage  is  well  aroused  and  has  fastened  upon  all 
hearts  does  the  playwright  advance  to  the  strength- 
ening and  deepening  complication — that  of  the  fa- 
mous temptation  scene  in  the  third  act,  when  the 
dark  flood  of  Othello's  false  suspicion  is  poured 
into  a  channel  where  the  waters  are  already  vexed 
with  anxiety.  First,  suspense  over  the  lot  of  Des- 
demona in  marriage;  second,  alarm  for  the  -mar- 
riage itself;  each  storm-cloud  flashing  fitful  and 
ominous  gleams  in  the  darkness,  and  each  throw- 


THE  ACTION,  207 

ing  a  lurid  light  on  the  other  as  they  approach  and 
form  a  vortex  about  the  devoted  Desdemona. 

Upon  a  situation  already  anxious  and  ominous — 
as  we  are  tossed  between  hope  and  fear  over  Desde- 
mona's  fate  in  marriage — arises  the  dark  cloud  of 
Othello's  wrong  suspicion,  threatening  ruin  to  the 
marriage  itself  and  the  destruction  of  the  parties  to 
it.  And,  wondrously  pitiful,  that  jealousy  is  made 
to  Othello  to  seem  more  real  and  true  because  of 
the  sublime  innocence  and  purity  of  his  relations 
with  Desdemona,  just  as  a  pure  white  surface  is  the 
one  wantonness  may  most  easily  stain. 

Not  failing  to  see,  not  underestimating,  the  un- 
matched intellectual  adroitness  of  lago  in  falsely 
poisoning  Othello  with  jealousy,  profoundly  moved 
as  we  must  be  by  the  agony  of  the  Moor  in  which 
lofty  honor  is  so  cruelly  mocked,  we  must  yet  see 
that  the  supreme  dramatic  triumph  lies  elsewhere 
— lies  in  the  tremendous,  unexpected  changes 
which  overcome  us  ere  we  are  aware,  and  cause  us 
finally  to  embrace  what  first  we  hated  most. 

Even  more  thrilling  and  wonderful  than  the  first 
are  the  later  tragic  turns  of  the  drama. 

Roderigo!  Of  all  surprises,  is  it  not  the  greatest 
we  should  turn  to  the  dupe,  the  snipe,  as  offering 
some  hope  for  the  relief  of  Desdemon'a?  Skulk- 
ing on  the  horizon  of  the  drama,  this  "  guU'd  gen- 
tleman," this  half-sated  rouCi  seemed  to  have  no 
other  purpose  than  that  of  a  subject  on  which  we 
could  see  lagb  playing  his  art  of  duping  as  if  on 
small  game  in  preparing  for  large;  but  now  this 
contemptible  creature,  with  his  idea  of  buying  Des- 


2o8  THE   OTHELLO. 

demona  with  gold  and  jewels,  appears  to  have  great 
possibilities  of  good  in  him,  if  he  will  only  persist 
in  his  turn  on  lago  and  demand  the  restoration  of 
his  treasures  from  Desdemona.  If  so,  he  must  cer- 
tainly expose  lago  and  thwart  his  whole  villainy. 
Then  another  surprise.  Roderigo,  this  "  tool  of  the 
most  dangerous  description,"  who  seemed  at  last 
almost  certain  to  perform  a  service  better  men 
could  not,  and  to  figure  as  the  only  possible  agency 
that  could  rescue  Desdemona,  is  again  overcome 
by  lago,  and  led  backward  by  the  nose  as  tenderly 
as  asses  are. 

'And  poor  Desdemona!  Unconscious  there  was 
ever  a  possibility  of  her  deliverance  through  Rode- 
rigo, she  finds  hope  at  last,  not  so  much  for  her- 
self as  for  Othello,  and  for  us,  in  the  very  relation 
which  at  first  was  that  of  our  utmost  abhorrence. 
By  a  stranger  alchemy  than  might  convert  base 
metal  to  gold  a  relation  which  was  most  repulsive 
becomes,  for  the  moment  at  least,  the  one  of  our 
hope. 

Wound  in  the  boa-folds  of  false  appearance  until 
all  hopes  of  full  relief  are  gone  and  Othello  is  ready 
to  take  her  life,  as  her  cup  of  woe  overflows  there 
comes  to  the  "  wifely  maid  "  the  inspiration  of  prov- 
ing her  innocence  to  the  Moor  by  dedicating  herself 
in  marriage  to  him.  If  the  handkerchief  was 
caused  to  speak  against  her  falsely,  the  wedding 
sheets,  as  she  believes,  and  as  the  nuptial  poetry  of 
her  time  taught,  can  give  a  testimony  which  no 
villainy  can  pervert,  distort,  or  deny.  Thus  a  mar- 
velous reversal,  like  that  of  the  first  act,  is  worked 


THE  action:  209 

in  the  last  on  a  grander  scale  Even  as  we,  like 
Desdemona,  were  compelled  to  be  reconciled  to  the 
Moor  and  fall  in  love  with  what  at  first  we  feared 
to  look  upon,  so  finally  hateful  and  abhorrent  mis- 
cegenation is  wrought  to  such  a  pitch  as  to  appear 
in  prospect  stripped  of  repulsiveness,  and,  marvel 
of  marvels,  caused  to  figure  as  Desdemona's  only 
hope  of  relief — the  only  thing  that  can  bring  de- 
liverance to  truth  and  honor. 

Yet  this  can  be  done  only  if  the  Moor  fall  from 
his  high  estate;  no  longer  aims  to  be  free  and  boun- 
teous to  Desdemona's  mind,  but  stoops  to  accept 
her  mistaken  and  fatal,  though  most  generous,  de- 
votion. This  can  only  be  if  Othello  is  false  to  what 
we  have  so  admired  and  honored  in  him,  disap- 
points our  early  confidence  and  hope,  and,  leading 
Desdemona  where  she  mistakenly  asks  to  go,  takes 
her  to  wreck.  Which  shall  it  be — ruin  to  Des- 
demona— ruin  to  the  marriage — ruin  to  the  Moor? 
Such  is  the  prodigious  power  and  force  of  the 
tragic  storm  sweeping  us  on  into  the  last  act  as  we 
cling  despairingly  to  the  almost  uncherishable  hope 
of  Roderigo,  and  lose  that  only  to  seize  the  yet 
more  forlorn  one  sugg^ested  by  the  wedding  sheets 
— the  baffling  of  lago,  although  at  untold  cost 
to  Desdemona.  And  Othello — how  fearful  the 
change  in  the  man  who  was  '*  not  easily  jealous  but 
being  wrought,"*  was  swept  on  until  the  self-ruled 

*  A  wonderful  word,  expressing  the  trial  which,  starting 
with  the  early  doubts  of  the  propriety  of  the  elopement, 
strengthened  with  the  attempted  austere  denial  in  the  con- 
stant presence  of  inviting,  lawful   opportunity,  and  cul- 


210  THE  OTHELLO. 

and  imperious  general  becomes  for  a  time  a  frantic 
barbarian  howling  for  blood  and  revenge! 

These  are  the  gmnd  transfigurations,  and  yet  all 
are  lost  alike  in  the  prevailing  interpretations  of 
the  piece  both  on  and  of¥  the  stage.  Most  lam- 
entable is  it  that,  in  the  theories  of  the  play  now 
extant  and  embodying  the  scholarship  of  two  cen- 
turies, we  have  as  common  to  them  all  the  assump- 
tion of  a  marriage  consummated  early  in  the  sec- 
ond act  before  the  jealousy  of  Othello  has  been 
excited,  or  can  be  made  to  appear  piteously  on  a 
background  of  w'hite  abstinence;  too  soon  to 
prove  Desdemona's  innocence  with  Cassio,  and 
yet  before  any  stress  of  agony  is  laid  upon  her 
to  reduce  her  to  wreck;  before  the  pair  tread 
the  wine-press  of  sorrow  singly  or  together; 
before  we  can  feel  a  throb  of  palliation  or 
excuse — only  sickening  disgust.  We  are  asked 
to  see  them  enter  into  repulsive  relations  simply 
as  a  part  of  the  anticipated  felicity  of  early  mar- 
ried life,  when  all  was  happy  about  them  and 
the  act  could  have  no  secondary  consequences  of 
a  redeeming  or  justifying  nature  in  confuting 
lago's  villainy.  And  after  such  consummation  of 
the  unnatural  marriage  we  are  asked  to  behold  Des- 
demona  radiantly  happy,  pure-spirited,  delicate- 
minded  as  ever,  even  when  perhaps  she  is  already 
irremediably  committed  to  a  wrong  maternity,  to 
the  motherhood  of  hybrid  ofifspring.  Utterly 
wrong,    this.     Wholly    diflferent    the    method    of 

minated  in  lago's  fiendish  transmutation  of  beauty  and 
holiness  into  the  basest  treachery  and  dishonor. 


THE  ACTION.  211 

Shakespeare    in   his    slow    but    superlative   trans- 
figuration of  the  prospective  miscegenation. 

Only  over  a  pathway  of  thorns  and  flint  along 
which  the  feet  must  bleed,  only  after  extenuation 
was  piteously  wrought  out,  would  Shakespeare 
lead  us  or  lead  this  matchless  pair  up  to  a  misce- 
genation possible  in  our  thought.  He  takes  us 
with  him  in  that  direction  blindly,  unwillingly, 
through  the  undoing  of  Othello,  through  Desde- 
mona's  sorrow,  through  a  series  of  tragic  revolu- 
tions which  disturb  our  prepossessions,  unsettle 
strong  prejudices,  shake  a  rooted  antipathy,  and 
compel  us  at  last,  like  a  drowning  wretch,  to 
grasp  at  any  straw  of  hope.  Even  in  the 
under-key  of  the  play  we  are  put  through 
an  emotional  oscillation  and  perturbation  which 
trains  our  sympathies  for  new  flights,  accus- 
toms them  to  unwonted  effort.  Roderigo  is 
a  contemptible  creature,  pitied  and  despised  for  be- 
lieving he  can  buy  Desdemona  through  lago,  and 
with  the  gold  artfully  bobbed  from  him  by  that 
wretch  ostensibly  for  the  unlawful  purpose,  but 
really  for  the  knave's  own  greed.  Naturally  we 
would  have  more  hope  of  a  fool  than  of  Roderigo, 
and  yet  at  one  point  of  the  tragic  unfolding,  and 
against  all  previous  inclination,  we  are  compelled 
to  turn  hopefully  toward  him;  seeing  the  dupe  face 
his  duper  with  anger  and  accusation,  we  cannot  but 
hope  he  may  be  the  means  of  exposing  lago  and 
bringing  Desdemona  a  complete  and  final  vindica- 
tion. The  "  gull'd  gentleman "  becomes  for  a 
time  the  center  of  our  hopes,  the  man  who  may 


212  THE  OTHELLO. 

bring  deliverance,  whom  one  small  act  may  trans- 
form into  a  hero.  But  even  then  we  only  seize 
upon  one  desperate  and  unwelcome  expedient  to 
find  it  fails  us;  we  must  grasp  another.  As  every 
other  chance  to  prove  Desdemona's  innocence  dis- 
appears, and  every  outside  hope  of  a  vindication 
breaks  and  fails,  so  we  have  to  turn  away  even 
from  Roderigo.  When  he  fails  us — when  the  men- 
tal and  emotional  revolution  which  made  us  turn 
to  him  as  a  possible  hero  proves  unavailing — we 
are  prepared  for  a  last  great  effort,  a  still  more  des- 
perate risk,  and  we  invoke  the  testimony  of  the 
wedding  sheets  to  prove  Desdemona's  innocence, 
wrong  though  the  consummation  must  ever  be. 

As  we  love  Desdemona's  fidelity  and  devotion, 
as  we  pray  for  a  disenthrallment  that  will  open 
the  mind  of  Othello  again  to  the  truth,  as  we  abhor 
lago's  fateful  villainy  and  would  give  a  world  to 
see  him  foiled,  we  feel  for  the  moment  that  we  can 
ask  for  the  testimony  of  the  virginal  wedding  sheets 
and  believe  miscegenation  can  serve  virtue's  cause 
and  become  almost  a  virtue  itself. 

But  if  we  consent,  if  at  last,  not  through  ex- 
pected wifely  joy,  but  through  sacrificial  love,  Des- 
demona  brings  herself  to  such  devotion,  it  is  still 
true  the  transfigured  and  glorified  act  shall  never 
be. 

Even  now,  under  all  this  storm  and  stress,  and 
with  miscegenation  transformed  as  we  could  never 
have  thought  possible,  Shakespeare  will  not  con- 
sent to  it — will  not  permit,  under  all  these  tremen- 
dous circumstances   of  extenuation   and   seeming 


THE   ACTION.  213 

necessity,  any  such  ruin  of  Desdemona's  delicacy 
and  wrecking  of  Othello's  pledges  as  wretched 
commentary  has  supposed  to  occur  in  happy  hours, 
with  no  better  excuse  or  purpose  than  debased  pas- 
sion. Grand  and  glorious  is  it  when  we  are 
brought  to  a  consent  extorted  from  us  by  tragic 
pathos  and  necessity  to  find  the  black  Othello 
knows  neither  thought  nor  impulse  of  yielding — 
cannot  so  much  as  think  of  a  consummation  even 
when  the  bride  says  *'  Come."  The  early  renun- 
ciation of  the  Moor,  and  the  noble  chasteness  of 
his  soul,  are  still  so  strong  the  wedding  sheets  are 
spread  in  vain  for  him;  for  he  comes  to  Desde- 
mona's  bed,  not  responding  to  her  preparation,  but 
to  enforce  an  awful  expiation  to  supposed  honor 
and  justice. 

No  temptation,  no  soft  opportunity,  can  swerve 
the  sublime  Moor  one  jot  from  what  he  owes  to 
honor.  Even  as  his  magnificent  will  and  resolu- 
tion stood  fast  at  the  door  of  the  nuptial  chamber, 
when  honor  spoke  only  in  a  soft,  subdued  voice 
amid  sounds  of  revelry,  so  it  is  only  too  sternly 
and  awfully  true  that  he  will  not  fail  or  waver  when 
summoned  by  a  call  more  imperative  than  any  he 
ever  heard  upon  the  field  of  battle. 

Witness  a  heaven-moving  question — a  terrific  an- 
swer— ^when  Desdemona,  awaking,  finds  Othello  at 
her  bedside  for  the  first  and  only  time: 

Des,  Will  you  come  to  bed,  my  lord? 

0th.  Have  you  pray'd  to-night,  Desdemona? 

Piteous  the  question,  with  maiden  coyness  all 


ai4  THE   OTHELLO. 

blasted  and  lost  in  sorrow;  appalling  the  answer, 
rendered  in  the  stern  and  terrible  chasteness  of  the 
Moor,  who  listens  only  to  the  supposed  voice  of 
honor,  passes  the  bride's  soft  proffer  as  if  hearing  it 
not,  remains  untouched  by  Desdemona's  prepara- 
tion— demands  her  life,  not  her  virginity. 

So,  by  the  steps  of  a  lofty  pledge,  a  grand  renun- 
ciation, an  illumined  marriage,  and  the  prospect  of 
a  transfigured  connubium,  we  reach  the  immense 
crowning  surprise  of  the  virginal  sacrifice  plead- 
ingly offered  but  unaccepted. 

These  great  dramatic  splendors  are  lost  one  and 
all  in  the  degenerate  modern  theories  of  the  play, 
formed  since  the  playgoers  and  actors  of  the  earlier 
centuries  went  to  their  graves,  carrying  the  true 
epithalamic  interpretation  with  them;  leaving  no 
record  of  it  in  print  or  writing,  thinking  it  must 
ever  be  as  self-apparent  to  others  as  it  was  to  them. 
All  the  interpretations  which  now  survive,  differing 
immensely  in  details,  suppose  in  common  a  con- 
summated marriage,  rob  the  play  of  its  chief  glory, 
and  leave  it,  despite  the  indestructible  beauty  of  the 
lines,  dramatically  a  botch.  The  glorious  changes 
showing  the  marriage  now  under  this  light,  now 
under  that;  the  wondrous  delineation  of  quick- 
coming  jealousy  as  a  probable  thing  in  the  natu- 
rally non-jealous  Moor;  the  preservation  of  Desde- 
mona's  dehcacy  and  Othello's  equally  unstained 
pledges  and  honor;  the  marvelous  transfiguration 
of  the  connubium  as  it  appears  in  prospect,  with  the 
early  pledge  of  continence  awfully  relumed  at  last 
— all  these  tragic  splendors  are  utterly  lost  in  the 


THE  ACTION,  215 

common  interpretations,  and  we  are  given  instead 
a  drama  starting  grandly  with  the  poetic  marriage 
and  sinking  heavily  and  quickly  to  base,  unmo- 
tived,  horrible,  disgusting  naturalism. 

Where  the  audacious  genius  of  Shakespeare, 
surpassing  itself  in  boldness,  began  the  tragedy  at  a 
giddy  and  perilous  height  in  the  first  act,  and  rose 
even  from  that  level  by  successive  marvels  and 
wonders,  the  world  has  accepted  a  deformed  theory 
which  makes  the  play  sink  steadily  from  the  open- 
ing, and  groan  through  four  mortal  acts  of  ill-re- 
lieved animal  jealousy  and  miscegenation. 

Well  calculated  as  is  this  grievous  wrong  upon 
Shakespeare  to  arouse  indignation,  we  must  re- 
member that  it  has  sprung  from  an  innocent  and 
natural,  although  most  unfortunate,  error.  But 
natural  as  it  may  be  to  think  the  connubium  a  ne- 
cessity of  marriage  between  persons  within  the  re- 
productive age  and  state,  however  strong  force  of 
habit  may  be  in  indicating  a  certain  restraint  and 
consideration  as  the  conditions  of  an  elevated  mari- 
tal relation,  it  was  not  so  in  this  instance,  for  the 
reason  that  no  uprightness  of  sentiment  and  no  in- 
frequency  or"  delicacy  of  act  could  ever  justify  this 
marriage  in  proceeding  to  procreation.  Always 
"mindful  of  ends,  and  holding  deepest  reverence  for 
the  integrity  of  the  family  and  family  life,  Shakes- 
peare could  not  permit  this  marriage  to  pass  on  to 
consummation.  However  blameless  the  intent, 
only  a  halting  and  unworthy  criticism,  applying 
through  blind  force  of  habit  a  rule  absolutely  for- 
eign to  this  marriage,  could  ever  have  prompted 


2i6  THE   OTHELLO. 

and  sustained  the  fearful  misconception  of  a  com- 
pleted union. 

Bearing  in  mind  the  pivotal  point  and  distinc- 
tion of  an  inter-racial  marriage  not  softened  into 
tolerance  by  moderation  of  act  or  tenderness  and 
purity  of  accompanying  motives,  but  elevated  to  the 
sublime  by  absolute  renunciation,  we  have  a  glo- 
rious and  consistent  theory,  which  brings  the 
whole  plot  out  in  harmony,  and  which,  moreover, 
casts  a  side  light  of  surpassing  interest  through  the 
play  into  the  personality  of  its  author. 

The  other  theories  of  the  "  Othello  "  now  ex- 
tant do  not  deserve  mention  in  the  same  breath 
with  this. 

"  Look  here,  upon  this  picture,  and  on  this  : 
Could  you  on  this  fair  mountain  leave  to  feed, 
And  batten  on  this  moor? " 


CHAPTER    XL 

ELIZABETHAN   SIDE   LIGHTS. 

Deeply  significant  is  the  relation  of  the  old  'Eng- 
lish miracle  plays  to  the  dramatic  work  of  Shakes- 
peare's time.  It  is  as  certain  as  anything  in 
Shakespeare's  life  well  can  be  that  the  old  Coventry 
miracle  or  mystery  play  must  have  been  familiar 
to  him  from  childhood,  and  have  supplied  his 
first  dramatic  inspiration.* 

Written  at  first  to  teach  the  mysteries  of  Chris- 
tianity, the  work  of  priests  and  monks,  the  Coven- 
try mystery,  centuries  old  in  Shakespeare's  boy- 
hood and  with  every  feature  ground  into  popular 
tradition  and  memory,  had  no  more  striking  scenes 
or  features  than  those  which,  with  such  realistic  de- 
tail, depicted  the  unconsummate  marriage  of  Joseph 
and  Mary.  Thus,  while  in  Shakespeare's  early 
formative  period  the  epithalamium  or  bedding  bal- 
lad of  the  ancients  was  blooming  in  freshness  in 
English  verse,  suggesting  approach  to  the  bride 
chamber  to  catch  its  perfumes  and  feel  its  glow, 
over  against  it  was  set  the  old  stage  picture  of  nup- 
tial joys  inhibited  and  lost  in  the  glory  of  a  chaste- 

*  Halliwell-Phillipps  observes  that,  in  an  instance  where 
the  Mystery  departed  from  the  New  Testament,  Shakes- 
peare's allusion  follows  the  play.  Cases  are  cited  of  men 
whose  only  knowledge  of  Christianity  was  from  the  play. 

3I7 


2l8  THE    OTHELLO. 

ness  sanctified  in  marriage.  The  attempt  to  read 
the  "  Othello  "  without  the  light  of  the  miracle  play 
and  the  Elizabethan  bride-song  is  the  cause  of  one 
of  the  greatest  perversions  known  to  literature,  and 
we  can  correct  it  only  by  going  to  the  root  of  the 
error. 

The  Coventry  miracle  play,  after  portraying  the 
fall  of  man  and  the  prophecies  of  Christ,  passed  on 
and  reached  one  of  its  points  of  greatest  interest 
in  representing  the  marriage  of  Joseph  and  Mary. 
Reserving  a  fuller  consideration  for  a  later  stage, 
I  ask  attention  at  present  to  certain  features  of  this 
scene  as  echoed  and  reproduced  in  other  Eliza- 
bethan playwrights  besides  Shakespeare. 

Immediately  after  the  wedding  Joseph  greeted 
his  bride  thus: 

*•  Mary,  wife  and  maid,  most  gracious." 

And  Mary  herself,  in  her  rejoicing  after  the  wed- 
ding, says: 

"  For  now  I  am  both  maid  and  wife." 

Pledging  himself  Mary's  "  warden  and  keeper  '* 
ever  to  be,  Joseph  desires  the  bishop  to  know 

"  That  in  bed  we  shall  never  meet." 

And  leaving  Mary  immediately  after  the  wed- 
ding, he  tells  her,  with  notable  precision,  for  nine 
months  she  shall  see  him  not.  Returning,  perhaps 
a  month  sooner  than  he  expected,  Joseph  has 
Mary's  approaching  motherhood  properly  ex- 
plained, and  sets  out  with  her  on  the  journey  so 


ELIZABETHAN  SIDE  LIGHTS,  219 

strangely  interrupted  when   he   left   Mary   in  the 
stable  and  went  to  seek  assistance. 

When  Joseph  returns  to  the  stable,  expecting  the 
birth  of  Jesus,  and  bringing  with  him  the  two  mid- 
wives  whose  services  proved  so  needless,  he  cried 
again ; 

"  All  hail,  maiden  and  wife,  I  say." 

In  a  number  of  Elizabethan  dramas  which  fol- 
lowed fast  upon  the  Coventry  miracle  play,  we  find 
not  only  the  conception  of  an  unconsummate  mar- 
riage repeated  in  various  forms,  but  the  language  of 
Joseph  and  Mary  is  echoed  often  in  literal  terms. 
Melantus,  in  the  "  Maid's  Tragedy,"  greets  As- 
patia,  believing  her  to  be  only  an  hour  married: 

"  Hail,  maid  and  wife." 

So  Zenocia,  in  the  "  Custom  of  the  Country,*' 
is  described  as  "this  virgin  wife,"  although  some 
time  married.  And  the  same  playwright  and  con- 
temporary of  Shakespeare  who  echoed  the  terms  of 
the  miracle  play  in  this  manner  applied  to  another 
of  his  heroines  a  happy  phrase — ''  maiden  wife  and 
wifely  maid  " — which  fits  equally  the  Mary  of  the 
old  mystery  drama,  and,  for  a  time  at  least,  her  suc- 
cessors in  human  sanctity,  though  not  in  divine 
favor,  the  Ordellas,  the  Evanthes,  and  the  Desde- 
monas  of  the  Elizabethan  stage.  I  am  not  aware  of 
any  comparison  of  details  between  the  miracle  and 
Elizabethan  plays  having  been  carried  out  along 
this  line,  but  Boas,  Symonds,  Halliwell-Phillipps, 
and  others  observe   a   striking  general   influence 


220  THE   OTHELLO. 

cast  from  the  dying  religious  drama  on  the  work 
oi  Shakespeare  and  his  fellows.  Remarking  on 
the  survival  of  the  miracle  play  until  it  "  overlapped 
Hamlet,"  Boas  thinks  "  it  is  something  worthier 
than  the  love  of  picturesque  anecdote  that  prompts 
us  to  accept  the  statement  of  biographers,  sup- 
ported by  apparent  reminiscences  in  his  works, 
that  Shakespeare  in  his  boyhood  had  made  the 
short  pilgrimage  from  Stratford  to  Coventry  to 
witness  the  famous  Corpus  Christi  pageant." 
There  or  at  Stratford  he  must  have  seen  it  many 
times;  and  what  must  have  been  the  effect  upon  his 
sensitive  and  imaginative  nature  of  the  representa- 
tion of  the  divine  mystery  of  the  Incarnation? 
Absorbed  above  all  dse  in  the  beauty  and 
glory  of  womanhood,  how  must  Shakespeare 
have  been  affected  by  the  portrayal  of  the 
wifehood  and  motherhood  of  Mary?  Nothing 
in  the  whole  range  of  the  miracle  play 
could  have  aroused  and  stimulated  such  a  na- 
ture more  than  the  scene  Where  the  Virgin  raptur- 
ously declares  she  feels  within  her  womb  "  per- 
fect man  and  perfect  God."  We  shall  not  find  in 
Shakespeare  or  other  playwrights  any  adaptations 
of  that  scene,  but  the  conception  of  arrested  mar- 
riage and  of  a  preserved  virginity  was  taken  up  and 
treated  by  them  from  a  purely  human  standpoint. 
And  just  here  we  reach  a  point  where  Shakes- 
peare's variations  and  departures  from  the  miracle 
play  are  as  instructive  as  the  points  of  resemblance. 
The  subject  is  in  some  ways  a  painful  one  to  the 
modern  mind,  which  cannot  understand  how  the 


ELIZABETHAN  SIDE  LIGHTS.  221 

sublimities  of  religion  and  gross  realism  could  be 
brought  together  in  'scenes  designed  to  teach  the 
truths  of  Christianity;  but,  as  Sym'onds  says,  in 
speaking  of  this  juxtaposition  in  early  art,  to  the 
simple  folk  of  those  times  it  was  both  right  and 
natural  that  '*  even  the  unclean  should  find  a  place 
in  art  and  in  religious  mysteries."  It  seems  to  me 
we  have  in  Shakespeare's  treatment  of  Desdemona, 
when  it  is  compared  with  the  delineation  of  Mary's 
saved  virginity  in  marriage,  an  instructive  and  in- 
valuable proof  of  our  great  poet  as  the  forerunner 
and  leader  of  the  sentiment  which  has  so  completely 
banished  the  unclean  from  religious  observances, 
but  the  matter  cannot  be  clearly  presented  without 
a  closer  reading  of  certain  scenes  of  the  miracle 
play  than  would  ordinarily  be  either  enlightening 
or  agreeable.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  by  the 
time  Shakespeare  heard  the  Coventry  miracle  play 
it  had  received  gross  interpolations  from  non-cleri- 
cal hands.  Hence  the  singular  juxtaposition  of 
the  beautiful  and  majestic  with  the  intolerable. 
Mary's  prayer  just  before  her  marriage  to  Joseph, 

"Gracyous  God,  my  maydenhed  save 
Ever  clene  in  chastyte," 

may  be  read  reverently  and  without  a  feeling  of 
undue  stress  on  the  physical  token,  and  no  one  can 
question  the  simple  beauty  of  the  reference  to  the 
divine  child  before  birth  as  "  blomyd  in  a  madenys 
body,''  or  the  devout  address: 

*•  In  maydyns  flesche  thou  art  hede/* 


222  THE  OTHELLO. 

But  if  we  proceed  to  the  scenes  where  the  vir- 
ginity of  Mary  was  first  questioned,  and  then  estab- 
Hshed,  as  one  writer  says,  by  proofs  intended  to 
penetrate  the  thickest  skull,  we  cannot  but  appre- 
ciate the  softening  veil  of  thearchaic  spelling,  which 
here  may  well  be  strictly  preserved.  After  Joseph 
left  Mary  in  the  stable  and  went  in  search  of 
assistance,  he  returned  with  the  midwives  only  to 
find  the  miraculous  birth  accomplished.  To  the 
doubting  women,  who  could  not  a-t  first  believe  in 
a  conjunction  of  virginity  and  motherhood,  Mary 
said  : 

**  I  am  clene  mayde  and  pure  virgyn, 
Tast  with  your  hand  yourself  alon." 

There  is  no  doubt  this  request  was  acted  out  be- 
fore old  English  audiences  in  the  Coventry  play, 
which  was  yet  the  purest  of  the  religious  dramas. 
Zelomy's  speech  in  Old  English  runs  thus: 

*•  O  myghtfulle  God  have  mercy  on  me 
A  merveyle  that  nevyr  was  herd  beforn 
Here  openly  I  fele  and  se 
A  fayr  chylde  of  a  maydon  is  borne 
And  nedyth  no  waschynge  as  other  dou 
Fful  clene  and  pure  forsooth  is  he; 
Without  spot  or  any  polucyon, 
His  modyr  nott  hurte  of  virgynite! " 

At  the  trial  of  Mary  for  breaking  her  vow  of  vir- 
ginity a  means  of  proof  was  employed  which  the 
profane  dramatist  could  copy,  as  l^lctclier  did  with 
notable  success  in  the  "  Faithful  Shepherdess  " — 
the  ordeal  of  flame.     But  the  preceding  accusations 


ELIZABETHAN  SIDE  LIGHTS.  i«3 

were  incredibly  coarse.  The  subject  can  only  be 
painful  at  this  day,  but  we  cannot  appreciate  the 
purity  of  Shakespeare's  art,  and  the  truth  of  his 
attitude  toward  the  great  Christian  mystery,  until 
we  see  the  models  before  him  for  the  disclosures 
of  divinely  unconsummate  marriage  and  compare 
them  with  his  way  of  exhibiting  a  purely  human 
one. 

The  first  detractor  *  accused  Mary  of  breaking 
her  vow  of  maidenhood  in  marriage  with  Joseph, 
but  the  second  charged  a  worse  offense: 

*'  A  !    Nay,  nay,  we  ;  wers  she  hath  him  payd 
Sum  fresche  zouge  galaunt  she  lovyth  wel  more, 

And  that  doth  greve  the  old  man  sore." 

Not  even  this  was  the  limit  of  coarseness,  for  we 
have  to  listen  then  to  the  first  detractor  again: 

'*  Such  a  zouge  damsel  of  bewte  bright 
And  of  schap  so  comely  also, 
Of  hire  talle  oftetime  be  lyght 
And  rygh  tekyl  undyr  the  too." 

In  an  age  that  had  endured  such  offense  as  this 
in  a  play  devoted  to  religion,  we  could  hardly  ex- 
pect to  find  a  secular  playwright  treating  a  merely 
human  instance  of  marriage  arrested  and  virginity 
preserved  with  a  delicacy  so  soft  and  refined  that 
in  subsequent  centuries,  not  alive  to  issues  and  allu- 
sions centering  about  such  unusual  wedlock,  the 
meaning  has  been  altogether  lost.     But  that  is  one 

♦  lago's  **  put  money  in  thy  purse  "  is  a  literal  reproduc- 
tion of  the  language  of  another  detractor  in  the  mystery. 


224  THE   OTHELLO. 

of  the  great  lessons  of  the  "  Othello,"  one  of  the 
glories  of  Shakespeare  to  which  the  world  should 
awake.  The  taste  of  his  age  rested  upon  Shakes- 
peare at  times,  and  he  responded  somewhat  to  the 
appetite  for  gros'sness;  but  when  he  came  to  pic- 
ture a  virgin  wife  in  marriage,  he  felt  that  he  was 
passing  into  an  atmosphere  of  holiness  and  sanc- 
tity, and  while  aiming  only  at  purpose's  of  secular 
art,  he  caught  the  inspiration  of  the  miracle,  but 
purged  away  its  vile  realism  and  offense.  When 
in  his  art  a  woman  approached  the  sanctity  of  the 
miracle  drama,  grossness  of  allusion  or  method 
could  not  play  upon  her,  but  even  the  suggestion 
of  her  state  had  to  be  veiled. 

It  was  quite  different  with  other  Elizabethan 
playwrights.  Only  by  unusual  and  extraordinary 
effort  do  they  rise  to  the  conception  of  a  marriage 
remaining  unconsummate  through  a  high  motive, 
and  when  they  do  there  is  always  some  inconsist- 
ent display  of  grossness,  some  such  juxtaposition 
of  the  platonic  and  the  physical  as  in  the  miracle 
play.  At  first  glance  it  may  seem  as  if  the 
"  spiritual  love "  depicted  in  the  "  Knight  of 
Malta  "  is  an  exception,  and  reaches  close  up  to 
that  of  Othello  and  Desdemona.  Oriana  does  in- 
deed come  for  a  moment  almost  up  to  the  Shakes- 
pearean level  when  she  pictures  to  her  lover  the 
beauties  of  a  purely  platonic  love  and  asks  him  to 

"  Think  on  the  legend  which  we  two  shall  breed." 

Refusing  to  kiss  him,  Oriana  told  the  knight  he 
did  enamor  her 


ELIZABETHAN  SIDE  LIGHTS.  225 

"  So  far  beyond  a  carnal  earthly  love 
My  very  soul  dotes  on  thee  and  my  spirits 
Do  embrace  thine;  my  mind  doth  thy  mind  kiss; 
And  in  this  pure  conjunction  we  enjoy 
A  heavenlier  pleasure  than  if  bodies  met; 
This,  this  is  perfect  love!  the  other  short 
Yet  languishing  fruition.     Every  swain 
And  sweating  groom  may  clasp,  but  ours  refined 
Two  in  ten  ages  cannot  reach  unto, 
Nor  is  our  spiritual  love  a  barren  joy; 
For  mark  what  blessed  issue  we'll  beget, 
Dearer  than  children  to  posterity, 
A  great  example  to  men's  continence 
And  woman's  chastity;  that  is  a  child 
More  fair  and  comfortable  than  any  heir! " 


This  is  an  uncommonly  high  expression  of  pla- 
tonic  love,  but  mark  the  incongruous  features. 
There  is  no  marriage  in  this  instance,  and  Oriana's 
plea  is  that  there  should  be  none;  the  implication 
under  the  whole  speech  being  th'at  in  marriage  it 
would  be  impossible  for  her  and  the  knight  to  keep 
their  love  wholly  spiritual.  And  that  was  doubt- 
less true.  Oriana  probably  had  good  reason  to  de- 
cline a  kiss  from  her  lover,  fearing  as  she  did  a 
risk  to  her  platonic  affection.  Loving  one  man 
ideally,  she  was  living  in  full  m'arriage  with  another. 
And  the  knight  himself,  who  assented  to  the  pledge 
of  spiritual  affection,  had  shortly  before  offered 
illicit  advances  to  one  of  the  waiting-women  of  his 
lady  love.  Such  is  the  incongruous  coarseness, 
not  of  side  scenes  or  of  contrasting  characters,  but 
of  the  persons  themselves  who  are  joined  in 
"  spiritual    love."    There    is    some    advance   here 


2  26  THE    OTHELLO. 

over  the  crude  suggestions  of  the  miracle  play, 
but  it  is  not  great. 

The  allusions  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  to  the 
loss  of  virginity  show  a  marked  improvement  on 
the  coarseness  of  the  old  miracle  plays,  but  the 
complaint  of  Coleridge  that  the  women  of  the  two 
immortally  joined  playwrights  "  value  their  chas- 
tity as  a  material  thing,  not  as  an  act  and  state  of 
being "  is  only  too  well  founded.  Allowance 
can  be  made  for  Lucina  thinking  her  chastity  could 
be  destroyed  by  violence  against  her  will,  but  in 
many  other  cases  female  virtue  is  offensively 
paraded  as  somatic  merely. 

Oriana  was  a  virtuous  wife  properly  wedded, 
yet  she  thought  that  to  a  second  husband,  even 
though  she  loved  him  devotedly,  she  could  only  be 
a  woman 

"  That  has  been  once  sold,  us'd,  and  lost  her  show ! 
I  am  a  garment  worn,  a  vessel  crack'd, 
A  zone  untied,  a  lily  trod  upon, 
A  forgotten  flower  cropt  by  another's  hand, 
My  color  sullied  and  my  odor  changed." 

As  Oriana  is  speaking  of  her  prospective  state 
as  a  widow,  after  a  period  of  lawful  wedded  life 
with  a  proper  husband,  and  when  contemplating  a 
second  marriage,  it  is  plain  she  thinks  of  virginity 
chiefly  as  a  material  thing. 

Zenocia,  in  the  "  Custom  of  the  Country,"  says 
that  to  Arnoldo  "  in  sacred  vow  I  have  given  this 
body,"  and  yet,  thinking  of  involuntary  relation 
with  another,  she  says: 


ELIZABETHAN  SIDE   LIGHTS,  227 

"...   The  purest  springs 
When  they  are  courted  by  lascivious  land  floods 
Their  maiden  pureness  and  their  coolness  perish  ; 
And  though  they  purge  again  to  their  first  beauty 
The  sweetness  of  their  taste  is  clear  departed." 

Beaumont  departs  at  times  from  the  representa- 
tion of  virginity  as  a  physical  rather  than  a  moral 
state;  Fletcher  never  does.  Nor  do  many  other 
Elizabethan  playwrights.  They  were  not  yet  eman- 
cipated, as  Shakespeare  was,  from  the  coarseness 
of  the  old  miracle  play,  with  its  incredible  physical 
proof  of  maidenhood  as  a  physical  thing.  His  im- 
mense advance  in  delicacy  of  delineation  cannot 
be  understood  until  his  work  is  compared  on  this 
point  specifically  with  the  method  of  the  religious 
plays. 

Representing  maiden  virtue  as  physical,  the 
Elizabethan  playwrights  found  it  difficult  to  con- 
ceive of  an  unconsummate  marriage  unless  the  hus- 
band suffered  some  bodily  restraint,  or  was  ani- 
mated by  dislike  of  his  wife  and  preference  for 
someone  else.  Along  such  lines  they  could  and 
did  deal  with  arrested  marriage,  but  their  prefer- 
ence was  to  stay  the  bridegroom  temporarily,  so 
they  could  rejoice  and  make  merry  over  his  tantali- 
zation.  The  restraint  of  the  husband  is  physical, 
not  mental — much  the  same  as  that  of  Joseph  in 
the  miracle  play,  who  was  caused  to  tremble  with 
the  weakness  of  age  in  order  to  explain  his  reserve, 
and  then,  to  make  sure,  was  kept  away  from  home 
and  from  his  wife  for  precisely  three-fourths  of  a 
year  after  his  wedding  day.     Almost  always  in  the 


228  THE   OTHELLO, 

Elizabethan  drama  the  restraint  of  the  husband  was 
limited  in  time,  suggestive  rather  than  heroic — the 
result  of  some  wile  or  mischance,  not  a  behest  of 
honor. 

Thus  Thierry's  inhibition  was  purely  physical — 
a  drink  prepared  to  paralyze  somatic  functions, 

"  Which,  given  unto  him  on  the  bridal  night, 
Shall  for  five  days  so  rob  his  faculties 
Of  all  ability  to  pay  that  duty 

Which  new-made  wives  expect,  that  she  shall  swear 
She  is  not  matched  to  a  man." 

The  profane  dramatists  generally  picture  the  re- 
straint of  the  bridegroom  as  involuntary.  Valerio, 
just  wedded  and  preparing  for  his  nuptials,  is  told: 

"If  thou  dost  oflfer  to  touch  Evanthe's  body 
Beyond  a  kiss,  though  thou  art  married  to  her 
And  lawfully,  as  thou  think'st  may'st  enjoy  her, 
That  minute  she  shall  die." 

In  the  **  Faithful  Friends  '*  the  familiar  Eliza- 
bethan concept  of  an  unconsummate  marriage  is 
touched  in  this  rude  fashion  in  a  colloquy  between 
the  lonely,  waiting  bride  and  her  waiting- woman 
shortly  after  the  wedding  ceremony; 

Flavia.  This  marriage  spoils  us  all; 
When  you  were  a  maid 

Phi.  A  maid,  Flavia  ! 

Flavia.  I  mean  uncoupled,  madam  ;  you  are  a  maid  now, 
but  for  necessity,  against  your  will. 

In  Wilkins'  "  Enforced  Marriage,"  produced 
probably  a  little  before  the  **  Othello,"  a  strange 
change  is  rung.     Throughout  the  main  part  of  the 


ELIZABETHAN  SIDE  LIGHTS.  229 

drama  Scarborough's  expressions  seem  to  indicate 
beyond  question  an  unconsummate  marriage: 
"  She  that  I  am  married  to,  but  not  my  wife " ; 
*'  False  woman,  not  my  wife  though  married  to 
me."     Katherine's  own  speeches  declare  the  same: 

"Though  married  I  am  reputed  no  wife." 

The  denouement  proves,  however,  that  the  resolu- 
tion not  to  live  with  the  enforced  wife  prevailed  not 
from  the  time  of  the  wedding,  but  from  the  death  of 
the  broken-hearted  and  unwed  love,  Clare.  The 
climax  shows  the  marriage  had  been  consummated, 
and  Scarborough  is  brought  finally  to  acknowl- 
edge it.  So  do  we  find  the  playwrights  persist- 
ently displaying  husbands  incapable  of  maintain- 
ing a  renunciation  or  of  doing  so  only  through 
physical  necessity,  or  because  of  some  other  favor- 
ite being  granted  the  place  the  wife  should  have. 
These  marital  heroes  are  all  cast  in  the  mold  of  the 
Joseph  of  the  miracle,  who  had  to  have  physical 
debility  put  upon  him,  and  then  be  kept  from  home 
to  cause  his  abstention  to  seem  probable.  There 
are  some  exceptions  to  these  pictures  of  manly 
chasteness  as  altogether  untrustworthy,  and  one  of 
considerable  force  may  be  found  in  the  Paradine 
of  Sir  William  Davenant's  tragedy  of  "  Albovine." 

That  Davenant  was  a  natural  son  of  Shakespeare 
is  probably  only  green-room  gossip,  but  the 
younger  William  was  no  doubt  a  great  favorite 
with  the  older,  and  we  may  well  believe  the  story 
of  his  running  eagerly  from  school  to  meet  Shakes- 
peare when  he  came  to  the  Crown  tavern.    When 


230  THE  OTHELLO. 

in  after  life  Davenant  "  seemed  content  to  be 
thought  Shakespeare's  son  "  he  probably  meant  it 
in  the  sense  of  being  a  pupil  and  follower  of  his 
great  master.  At  any  rate,  that  is  what  Davenant 
was,  and  in  his  tragedy  of  "  Albovine  "  we  have  a 
most  significant  side  light  for  the  ''  Othello."  Sev- 
eral writers  have  noticed  in  this  play  the  singular 
repetition  of  phrases  from  the  ''  Othello,"  but  the 
resemblance  goes  much  further  than  that,  although 
it  does  not  extend  to  the  general  plot.  There  is  no 
conflict  of  race  or  color  between  the  wedded  lov- 
ers, but  there  is  one  that  arrests  the  marriage  im- 
mediately after  the  ceremony  and  keeps  it  uncon- 
summate  until  death,  the  dramatic  lifetime  of  the 
pair  being  abbreviated,  however,  almost  as  much 
as  in  the  "  Othello."  Moreover,  the  juxtaposition 
of  scenes  of  hymeneal  suggestion  and  of  arrested 
marriage  is  even  more  striking  than  in  the 
"Othello";  for  Davenant  presents  a  double  mar- 
riage, and  then  carries  one  bridegroom  on  to  the 
nuptial  chamber,  while  the  gates  of  bliss  close  for- 
ever against  the  other  just  as  his  hand  is  put  upon 
the  latch.  "  No  masks,  no  epithalamium  now,"  for 
Albovine.  Paradine  disappears  with  Valdaura 
amid  denotements  plainer  than  any  call  for  wedding 
sheets  or  other  delicate  intimations,  and  is  intro- 
duced to  us  next  morning  amid  "  mirth  and  laugh- 
ter "  over  his  time  of  rising  and  like  jokes,  then 
thought  to  fit  the  nuptial  occasion. 

It  was  a  "  dire  abstinence  "  imposed  by  his  bride 
which  Albovine  suffered,  not  a  voluntary  one  like 
Othello's;  but  still  we  have  in  this  play,  in  the  char- 


kliZABETHAN  SIDE  LIGHT^.  ^3^ 

acter  of  Paradine,  a  spirit  approaching  that  of  the 
Moor,  and  in  notable  contrast  with  the  work  of 
most  of  the  old  playwrights.  Paradine  speaks  the 
truth  of  his  ov/n  heart  to  his  beloved  and  revered 
Valdaura : 

"  Not  the  mountain  ice, 
Congeal'd  to  crystal,  is  so  frosty  chaste 
As  thy  victorious  soul,  which  conquers  man 
And  man's  proud  tyrant-passion." 

This  is  worthy  Othello  himself,  and  might  have 
been  spoken  by  him  to  Desdemona,  were  it  not 
Shakespeare's  inflexible  rule  to  keep  her  delicacy 
removed  from  any  such  direct  allusion  to  the  secrets 
of  her  inner  life.  Turning  to  the  other  heroine  in 
Davenant's  play,  we  find  Rhodolinda's  motive  in 
arresting  the  marriage  and  holding  her  husband  in 
permanent  exclusion  was  one  that  appeals  to  our 
sympathies.  She  was  as  willing  a  bride  as  Val- 
daura, and,  although  not  a  Lombard,  fully  ex- 
pected to  obey 

"The  Lombard  custom,  whose  virgins  never  vow 
A  continence  the  nuptial  night." 

Not  even  for  that  brief  time  did  Rhodolinda  ex- 
pect to  stay  the  payment  of  her  conjugal  debt,  but 
wheii,  in  drinking  the  toasts  after  the  wedding  cere- 
mony, the  bridegroom  offered  foul  dishonor  to  the 
memory  of  her  dead  father,  she  justly  determined 
to  arrest  the  marriage  at  once,  and  hold  Albovine 
in  an  exclusion  that  should  last  as  long  as  life. 
But  while  Rhodolinda's  motive,  and  the  manly 
chasteness   of  Paradine,  rise   above  the   common 


232  THE  OTHELLO, 

level  of  the  old  playwrights  and  seem  to  approach 
the  "  Othello,"  Davenant  soon  falls  back.  Rhodo- 
linda,  after  the  righteous  tribute  to  her  father,  sinks 
all  regard  for  womanly  virtue  in  her  hunger  for  re- 
venge. Paradine's  virtue  is  not  abandoned,  but  the 
playwright  puts  him  in  a  sorry  plight  by  having 
Rhodolinda  obtain  access  to  his  apartment  by  per- 
sonating his  wife,  and  then  having  him  whimper 
over  the  loss  of  his  '*  chaste  honor."  So,  generally, 
in  the  old  plays  the  attempt  to  represent  manly 
chasteness  and  arrested  marriage  is  far  below  the 
lofty  one  of  Shakespeare. 

Among  other  plays,  written  for  the  same  genera- 
tion that  first  witnessed  the  '*  Othello,"  which  deal 
with  marriages  kept  unconsummate  for  a  greater 
or  less  time,  are  the  ''  Maid's  Tragedy,"  the  "  Cus- 
tom of  the  Country,"  the  **  Sea  Voyage,"  the 
"  Double  Marriage,"  the  "  Wife  for  a  Month," 
"  Thierry  and  Theodoret,"  and  "  A  Maidenhead 
Well  Lost,"  but  they  may  be  searched  in  vain  for  a 
marital  renunciation  noble  alike  in  motive  and  exe- 
cution. It  is  not  until  we  return  to  Shakespeare 
that  we  find  the  love  Oriana  spoke  of  as  beyond 
the  attainment  of  more  than  two  in  ten  ages. 
Here  we  have  the  arrested  marriage  of  the  miracle 
rendered  purely  human,  glorified  with  voluntary 
chasteness  and  renunciation,  and  carried  to  a  height 
which  seems  almost  too  much  for  mortal  reach. 
The  lesser  playwrights  could  not  follow  this  flight 
wherein  a  lofty  renunciation  aims  to  raise  an  in- 
termarriage above  the  vexations  of  opposing  blood 
and  color.     They  brought  on  the  stage  brides  and 


ELIZABETHAN  SIDE  LIGHTS.  233 

bridegrooms  of  the  same  race,  and  where  they 
stayed  the  union  it  was  through  an  inglorious  mo- 
tive, or  only  temporarily  with  the  obstacle  inter- 
posed as  an  obstruction  in  a  stream  which  may  in- 
crease the  strength  and  noise  of  the  current. 

Massinger's  ''  Bondman  "  comes  perhaps  as  near 
the  "  Othello  "  in  the  representation  of  supersen- 
suous  love  as  any  play  of  that  time.  Cleora  repeats 
almost  the  exact  language  of  Desdemona :  **  T 
love  Marulla's  fair  mind,  not  his  person."  She 
is  a  lady  of  high  station,  and  he  is  supposed  to 
be  a  base  slave,  but  is  not  of  a  dififerent  color.  His 
aflfection  for  her  appears  at  times  much  like  the 
"  humble  love  "  Othello  had  for  Desdemona,  since 
he  says  he  hopes  for  nothing  beyond  a  touch  of 
her  hand.  Bridling  all  base  impulse,  Marulla  cher- 
ished a  love  which  impressed  Cleora  as  of  the  kind 
that  *'  wing  great  minds  to  heaven  " ;  and  Timoleon 
expresses  wonder  that 

"...  a  slave  should  be 
The  owner  of  a  temperance  which  this  age 
Can  hardly  parallel  in  freeborn  lords 
Or  kings  proud  of  their  purple." 

This  is  an  unmistakable  paraphrase  or  echo  of 
Othello,  but  it  is  not  maintained  steadily  at  the 
same  height.  Marulla  was  so  lauded  simply  be- 
cause, having  the  woman  he  loved  absolutely  in 
his  power,  in  the  license  of  a  city's  fall,  he  defended 
her  honor  from  others  and  respected  it  himself. 
Afterwards  he  proves  to  have  been  a  man  of  high 
degree  in  disguise,  and  eventually  he  marries  the 


^34  tHE  OTtlELLO. 

lady,  no  further  renunciation  being  heeded  or  re- 
quired. This  is  much  below  the  denial  of  Othello, 
although  Marulla's  temptation  may  be  thought 
stronger  in  one  sense,  since  he  knew  all  the  time  he 
was  really  a  fit  companion  for  Cleora,  and  not  de- 
barred by  the  inhibition  of  race  and  the  baseness 
of  hybrid  offspring,  which  to  Othello  was  a  forbid- 
ding and  insurmountable  barrier  to  a  consummated 
marriage  and  second  only  to  the  unpardonable 
wrong  to  innocent  and  mistaken  Desdemona.  No 
such  restraints  as  these  rested  upon  Marulla,  and  he 
may  have  believed  all  the  while  his  denial  was  only 
temporary. 

While  the  early  stage  was  busy  with  pictures  of 
arrested  marriage  ranging  from  the  ignoble  to  the 
grand,  there  could  hardly  fail  to  be  an  echo  in  real 
life.  We  find  it  in  the  marriage  of  the  Countess 
of  Essex,  while  Shakespeare  was  still  in  London. 
**  A  daughter  of  the  proudest  family  of  the  English 
nobility,"  says  Macaulay,  *'  formed  the  resolution 
so  to  live  with  the  husband  to  whom  she  was  about 
to  be  married  that  she  might  lK>ast  herself  married 
to  him  only  in  name."  And  this  determination, 
which  was  actually  carried  out  in  unconsummate 
marriage  for  years,  dates  from  1609 — probably 
four  years  after  the  "  Othello  "  was  first  produced. 
So,  too,  had  the  idea  of  arrested  fruition  been  dealt 
with  in  '*  All's  Well  "  and  "  Measure  for  Measure." 
Wilkins'  "  Enforced  Marriage,"  where  the  union 
seemed  one  of  non-consummation  up  to  the  denoue- 
ment, had  been  a  favorite  on  the  stage  for  several 
years  when  the  Countess  of  Essex  introduced  the 


ELIZABETHAN  SIDE  LIGHTS.  235 

device  of  the  dramatists  into  the  actual  life  of  Eng- 
lish society  and  successfully  withheld  her  husband. 
It  can  hardly  be  thought  Frances  Howard  got  her 
suggestion  from  this  piece  or  a  tradition  of  the 
miracle  play,  or  from  seeing  or  hearing  of  Desde- 
mona's  nuptials;  for  her  motive  was  not  chaste- 
ness,  only  a  desire  to  save  herself  from  an  unac- 
ceptable husband  and  for  an  unlawful  lover  alone. 
I  cite  the  incident  merely  as  one  of  those  *'  subtle 
links  "  Macaulay  speaks  of  between  the  dramatic 
literature  of  an  age  and  its  actual  occurrences. 

We  may  believe  few  of  her  sex  sought  to  follow 
the  Countess  of  Essex  in  real  life,  but  in  fiction  the 
Elizabethans  heard  so  much  of  love  as  ingloriously 
incomplete  or  sentimental  that  within  ten  years 
after  the  death  of  Shakespeare  it  became  an  object 
of  satire;  as  in  the  *'  Mad  Lover,"  where  true  affec- 
tion is  mockingly  said  not  to  begin  until  death  re- 
lieves us  of  our  flesh  and  earthly  wedlock  is  de- 
clared a  coarse  expedient  to  keep  the  world 
peopled. 

A  full  view  of  Elizabethan  literature  will  supply 
ample  indications  that  when  Shakespeare  wrote  the 
**  Othello  "  he  revived  a  tradition  of  chivalry,  cast 
upon  it  a  dying  but  resplendent  light  of  the  miracle 
play,  bodying  forth  to  his  generation  a  conception 
which  took  strong  hold  upon  it,  standing  over 
against  the  gross  ideas  of  love  between  men  and 
women  as  one  extreme  produced  by  the  other. 
Carried  on  to  affectation  and  fantastic  manifesta- 
tions, the  idea  of  platonic  love  became  soon  after 
Shakespeare's   death   a   thing  for   satire.     Weber, 


236  THE  OTHELLO. 

early  in  the  present  century,  in  his  prefatory  note 
to  the  ''  Mad  Lover/'  which  was  first  produced 
about  the  time  of  Shakespeare's  death,  says  "  the 
dialogue  between  Memnon  and  Siphax  is  an  ad- 
mirable banter  on  the  absurd  afifectation  of  platonic 
attachment  so  fashionable  in  Fletcher's  days  and,  in 
a  somewhat  altered  shape,  revived  in  the  senti- 
mental comedies  of  our  own."  Unable  to  paint 
platonic  love  in  the  glorious  colors  Shakespeare 
used  in  the  ''  Othello,"  and  yet  unable  to  get  away 
from  the  spell  which  he  cast  upon  his  time  in  this 
play,  other  poets  and  dramatists  as  a  rule  could 
only  parody  it  and  grow  fantastically  sentimental. 
But  though  he  had  no  true  followers,  and  his  lofty 
conception  was  repeated  only  in  feeble  and  un- 
worthy echoes,  it  was  a  surpassing  achievement  to 
burn  the  thought  of  supersensuous  affection  into 
the  mind  of  an  age  which  was  naturally  gross;  for 
it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  revival  of  the  doc- 
trine of  platonic  love  in  Shakespeare's  time  was  in- 
spired by  his  "  Othello."  Since  thought  gross,  dis- 
jointed, crude,  the  story  of  Othello  and  Desdemona 
is  a  thing  ensky'd  and  sainted  that  sings  at  heav- 
en's gates.  Although  Shakespeare's  generation 
was  hardly  worthy  the  play,  the  better  class  was 
exceptionally  well  qualified  to  catch  the  meaning 
from  delicate  hymeneal  strokes,  and  the  effect  on 
them  was  evident.  Black  men  began  to  be 
thought  of  as  noble,  not  irredeemably  base.  A 
year  after  the  production  of  the  "  Othello  "  Ben 
Jonson  wrote  a  masque  in  which  the  complexion 
assigned  to  '*  the  blackest  nation  in  the  world  "  was 


ELIZABETHAN  SIDE  LIGHTS.  237 

held  not  incompatible  with  beauty  and  honor,  and 
in  acting  it  the  ladies  of  the  court  painted  their  arms 
and  faces  an  ebon  hue;  and  when  Fletcher,  years 
later,  caused  Oriana  to  appeal  to  her  lover  to  pre- 
serve an  abstinent  and  purely  spiritual  affection  for 
the  sake  of  a  high  legend  for  future  ages,  the  play- 
wright knew  in  truth  his  friend  and  master  had 
already  done  that  in  the  tale  of  "  the  orient  pearl 
joined  to  the  sooty  Moor." 

Shakespeare  never  moved  the  Elizabethan  heart 
more  strongly  than  with  this  play.  Others  dealt 
falteringly  or  palteringly  with  platonic  love;  he  was 
here  most  powerful,  thrilling,  and  fearsome.  Horri- 
fied at  first  with  Desdemona  apparently  devoted  to 
a  proposed  miscegenation    and  sent 

"To  the  gross  clasps  of  a  lascivious  Moor," 

— which  would  have  been  final  ruin  to  her  and  the 
drama, — the  Elizabethans  hung  through  five  acts  on 
a  lightly  touched  hope  and  found  at  last  the  dainty 
maid  had  been  held  ever  in  the  sanctified  love  of  the 
great  barbarian. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

Othello's  character  and  career. 

I  HAVE  already  followed  in  dHail  the  revelations 
of  the  platonic  marriage  as  they  support  and  de- 
velop the  action,  but  it  remains  to  apply  another 
test  and  inquire  whether  this  view  will  be  in  har- 
mony with  the  characterization,  more  particularly 
that  of  Othello,  .who,  in  the  accepted  interpreta- 
tions, is  regarded  as  having  something  of  the  beast 
or  savage  yet  in  him.  No  writer  has  labored  more 
determinedly  than  TurnbuU  to  whiten  Othello  to 
render  him  a  fit  husband  for  Desdemona,  and  then, 
with  singular  inconsistency,  to  darken  him  heavily 
to  account  logically  for  his  jealousy  and  murder  ol 
his  wife.  To  achieve  the  first  purpose  "  all  the 
beauty  and  dignity  of  conjugal  faith "  are  as- 
cribed to  Othello's  relation  to  Desdemona;  to  attain 
the  second  we  are  told  there  was  lurking  all  the 
time  in  the  Moor  "  the  distrust,  suspicion,  and 
mean  cunn.ng  of  the  savage."  And  the  utter 
physical  breakdown  of  Othello  is  attributed  not  to 
the  intolerable  mental  and  physical  strain  of  a  false 
life  in  marriage,  but  to  a  neurotic  temperament  and 
epilepsy,  although  the  Moor's  seizure  is  physically 
not  of  that  kind.  It  is  indispensable  to  the  new  in- 
terpretation consistently  to  prove  Othello  a  man  of 
such  character  and  training  to  make  him  capable  of 

338 


OTHELLO'S  CHARACTER  AND   CAREER.      239 

the  high  idealism  of  the  platonic  marriage,  for  the 
difficulty  of  assuming  non-somatic  relations  lies 
primarily  with  him;  and  if  he  is  justified,  Desde- 
mona  will  of  necessity  share  in  the  vindication, 
whether  she  desired  it  or  not. 

Usually  Shakespeare  deals  with  the  lives  of  his 
characters  in  any  detail  only  from  the  time  they 
appear  in  the  drama,  but  he  has  been  at  pains  to 
impress  us  with  the  entire  past  career  of  Othello 
from  childhood.  The  first  act,  so  fully  devoted  to 
the  past  of  Desdemona  and  the  Moor,  is  a  unique 
thing  in  Shakespeare.  The  Moor  told  the  Senate 
since  his  "  arms  had  seven  years'  pith  "  he  had  been 
engaged  in  constant  military  service  until  a  short 
time  before,  when  he  came  to  Venice.  It  is  clear 
his  boyhood  and  early  manhood  were  passed  in 
army  life,  wholly  removed  from  the  associations  of 
female  kindred,  or  indeed  good  women  of  any  kind, 
except  as  such  influence  may  have  come  to  him  as 
a  memory  of  the  past  of  his  childhood  or  as  a  pos- 
sible glimpse  of  the  future.  Naturally  such  an  ex- 
perience would  promote  hardness  of  character,  but 
we  are  soon  made  to  see  that  Othello  was  tough- 
ened only  in  body  and  soldierly  qualities,  being  one 
who  came  from  the  trials  and  temptations  of  such 
a  career  with  the  true  gold  of  a  noble  nature  tested 
and  proved  by  fire.  He  had  a  brother  who  had 
served  with  him  and  fallen  in  the  wars,  puffed  from 
his  arm  when  the  cannon  blew  his  ranks  into  the 
air.  The  fact  of  the  handkerchief  being  given  to 
Othello  implies  he  was  a  favorite  son,  or  at  least 
the  one  with  the  qualities  of  mind  and  heart  best 


240  THE   OTHELLO, 

fitting  him  to  be  the  custodian  of  the  precious 
family  token.  The  care  with  which  he  preserved 
and  guarded  it  through  all  the  tumult  and  changes 
of  his  stormy,  unsettled  life — through  battles  and 
sieges,  sale  into  slavery  and  redemption  thence — 
denotes  his  belief  that  there  was  "  magic  in  the  web 
of  it,"  and  prepares  us  for  the  injunction  he  laid 
upon  Desdemona  when  at  last  he  gave  the  antique 
token  to  her — "  Make  it  a  darling  like  your  pre- 
cious eye."  The  handkercher  had  all  the  associa- 
tions of  the  good  mother  in  the  past,  and  had  been 
presented  to  him  to  give  to  the  bride  of  the  future: 
it  typified  all  his  memory  recalled  and  all  his  hopes 
prefigured  of  pure  womanhood.  Emilia  tells  us 
Desdemona  had  been  so  well  impressed  with  the 
sacred  character  of  the  handkerchief,  even  before 
any  trouble  arose  over  it, 

"  That  she  reserves  it  evermore  about  her 
To  kiss  and  talk  to."*» 

lago,  too,  who  had  served  long  with  Othello  in 
the  army,  and  who  had  studied  him  with  the  pene- 
tration of  a  subtle  villain,  well  knew  the  sacred 
meaning  borne  by  the  handkercher.  When  he 
came  to  plot  the  ruin  of  Othello  after  the  marriage, 

*The  incident  of  the  handkerchief,  while  copied  by 
Shakespeare  from  Cinthio,  is  wonderfully  improved  and 
recreated.  In  Cinthio,  the  handkercher  is  simply  a  hand- 
some one  with  no  other  associations  than  as  a  gift  by  the 
Moor  to  Desdemona.  Giving  the  token  a  history  and  iu' 
vesting  it  with  sacred  meanings,  Shakespeare  throws  a 
flood  of  light  upon  the  character  of  the  man  who  so  valued 
and  cherished  it. 


OTHELLO'S  CHARACTER  AND   CAREER.      241 

by  awakening  jealousy  of  Desdemona,  he  believed 
nothing  could  serve  his  purpose  so  effectually  as  to 
create  a  suspicion  of  the  antique  token  receiving 
dishonor  from  her  hands.  The  surest  way  to  throw 
the  mind  of  Othello  from  its  accustomed  calm  and 
care  was  to  awaken  a  suspicion  of  dishonor  to  the 
sacred  talisman  which  came  from  his  mother  and 
had  become  the  symbol  of  all  that  was  sacred  in 
womanhood.  Hence  the  eagerness  of  lago  to  get 
possession  of  the  sacred  token.  Emilia  afterward 
says: 

"  For  often  with  a  solemn  earnestness, 
More  than  indeed  belonged  to  such  a  trifle, 
He  begg'd  of  me  to  steal  it." 

Again,  in  the  fearful  climax  of  the  last  act,  Des- 
demona is  told  her  worst  of  crimes  is  not  that 
against  Othello  himself  so  much  as  the  one  against 
the  handkerchief  of  sacred  memories.  The  shame 
of  shames  of  which  she  was  guilty  was  this: 

"  That  handkerchief  which  I  so  lov'd  and  gave  thee 
Thou  gav'st  to  Cassio." 

In  this  sacred  value  which  he  put  on  the  hand- 
kerchief, we  remark  not  only  why  dishonor  to  it 
should  work  him  to  fury,  but,  looking  farther  back, 
we  have  disclosed  to  view  the  character  of  the  man 
who  had  saved  such  a  relic  through  a  wild  and 
boisterous  career  as  something  connecting  him  with 
the  mother  of  past  memory  and  the  bride  of  the 
future,  if  such  a  one  there  was  to  be.  This  antique 
token,  rich  in  associations,  must  have  been  all  the 
more  precious  to  Othello  since  he  had  scarcely 


242  THE  OTHELLO. 

anything  else  in  his  life  freighted  with  the  influence 
or  memories  pertaining  to  good  women.  Taken 
from  his  native  land  in  childhood  and  serving  ever 
after  in  the  armies  of  Europe,  he  could  know  noth- 
ing of  women  of  his  own  clime  and  complexion, 
while  those  of  European  blood  were  doubly  re- 
moved from  him,  by  distance  and  by  race. 
In  this  peculiar  isolation  good  women  became 
ideals  rather  than  realities  to  Othello,  but  his 
faith  in  them  was  none  the  less  pronounced. 
This  peculiar  life,  with  its  distant  removal 
from  the  influence  of  good  women,  must  be  con- 
sidered in  the  light  of  the  fact  of  the  base  women 
who  followed  European  armies  being  ever  in 
sight.  Situated  as  Othello  was,  one  of  two  things 
became  inevitable:  the  impulse  of  sex  had  to  be 
idealized  and  carried  to  poetic  heights,  or  it  must 
inevitably  have  sunk  to  the  base.  With  women  of 
his  own  race  far  away  in  heathendom,  cut  off  from 
virtuous  ones  of  white  blood  by  his  alien  color  and 
race,  and  yet  with  the  wantons  of  the  camp  about 
him,  no  relations  of  an  ordinary  nature  were  pos- 
sible in  Othello's  case;  the  impulse  of  sex  had  to  be 
far  up  in  the  sphere  of  idealism  and  fancy  or  lower 
on  the  plane  of  the  baser  passion. 

I  pause  here  to  remark  again  the  surpassing  im- 
portance of  this  play  as  a  manifestation  of  the  man 
Shakespeare  in  his  study  of  the  grand  passion. 
What  must  have  been  the  final  faith  of  Shakes- 
peare in  human  nature  when,  after  a  lifetime  spent 
with  the  base  and  sinful  surroundings  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan playhouse  ever  in  sight  and  touch,  he  could 


OTHELLO'S  CHARACTER  AND   CAREER.     243 

draw  such  a  picture  of  superiority  to  sensuous  at- 
traction as  in  Othello!  Previously  his  plots  and 
characters  had  seemed  to  reflect  his  painful  and  re- 
pellent surroundings  to  the  point  of  despair  over 
what  Wendell  describes  as  the  "  vast  evil  mystery 
of  sexual  love "  in  its  power  over  men.  Yet  in 
this  play,  written  toward  the  close  of  his  career,  we 
have  him  sketching  a  man  removed  from  any 
probability  of  legitimate  marriage  and  surrounded 
by  base  temptation  only  to  triumph  over  it  with 
visions  of  love  and  womanhood  enshrined  in  lofty 
idealism.  We  might  not  wonder  so  much  at  this 
if  Othello  had  not  been  so  far  removed  from  good 
women  or  so  long  surrounded  by  the  base.  Evi- 
dently Shakespeare  intended  to  place  the  Moor 
where  he  had  himself  been  placed — as  one  satu- 
rated with  a  knowledge  of  the  female  impurity 
about  him,  and  yet  rising  superior  to  the  debasing 
influence.  Not  that  Othello  is  to  be  taken  for  a 
saint  or  a  god.  Instead,  he  gives  a  more  forcible 
example  from  being  presented  as  one  who  had 
fallen  at  some  distant  point  in  his  youth,  unknown 
seemingly  to  anyone  but  himself  and  the  other 
party  to  the  guilt,  but,  *'  confessing  the  vices  of  his 
blood,"  had  become  thereafter  a  convert  to  Chris- 
tianity and  had  led  a  white  life  in  strange  contrast 
with  the  men  about  him.  It  may  well  be  that 
this  noble  struggle  out  of  the  toils,  and  triumphant 
superiority  to  an  atmosphere  of  unceasing  debase- 
ment and  temptation,  voices  Shakespeare's  own 
rise  above  the  life  which  so  long  surrounded  him. 
At  the  time  Othello  met  Desdemona  we  must 


244  THE   OTHELLO. 

accept  him  as  a  man  who,  if  he  had  not  an  early 
youth  as  spotless  as  Joseph's,  had  yet  nobly  re- 
covered himself,  had  been  disciplined  by  repent- 
ance, and  who  for  a  prolonged  period  had  led  a  life 
white  in  contrast  with  his  surroundings,  and  whose 
appreciation  of  good  women  was  heightened  by  the 
revolt  and  loathing  with  which  he  had  turned  from 
the  opposite.  He  met  the  wives  and  daughters  of 
officers  when  they  visited  the  camps  or  when  he 
went  to  Venice,  but  had  long  abandoned  any  vis- 
ions he  may  have  had  in  youth  of  a  wife  of  the 
superior  race  with  which  his  fortunes  were  cast, 
and  had  come  to  look  upon  his  bachelor  life  or 
"  unhoused  condition  "  as  something  not  merely 
inevitable,  but  for  him  the  only  fit  and  proper  one. 
Such  was  the  man  Brabantio  invited  to  his  house 
and  presented  to  his  daughter. 

Welcomed  in  Venice  with  high  social  honor,  and 
introduced  to  the  matrons  and  maids  of  a  cultivated 
society,  Othello  could  have  had  no  idea  of  ever 
attaining  a  position  of  family  in  those  circles  where 
he  was  already  a  social  lion.  Notwithstanding  the 
attention  he  received,  and  the  high  position  he  had 
won  as  commander  of  the  Venetian  army,  Othello 
realized  what  the  barrier  of  race  meant,  and  was  so 
modest  as  to  hold  an  exaggerated  sense  of  his  per- 
sonal deficiencies.  ''  Rude  am  I  in  speech." 
When  before  the  Senate  it  was  only  in  his  own 
opinion  "  a  round  unvarnished  tale  "  he  could  de- 
liver, although  in  fact  it  was  a  perfect  thing  and 
charmed  every  ear.  Later  he  laments  his  lack  of 
the  attractions  of  conversation  which  he  thinks  pe- 


OTHELLO'S  CHARACTER  AND   CAREER.      245 

cuHar  to  effeminate  men.  Thinking  himself  cut  off 
from  the  love  of  woman  and  position  of  family  in 
the  only  society  and  the  only  race  where  he  could 
desire  them,  there  came  to  Othello  a  change  as 
swift  and  complete  as  any  that  ever  swept  over  his 
ranks  in  time  of  battle.  With  slight  warning  or 
preparation  he  was  made  to  know  that  the  speech 
he  thought  so  rude  sounded  sweeter  in  the  ears  of 
the  fairest  daughter  of  Venice  than  any  phrase  of 
love  she  had  heard  from  her  own  countrymen;  that 
his  tale  of  adventure  was  more  entrancing  to  fair 
Desdemona  than  any  she  listened  to  from  the 
high-born  youth  of  Venice,  and  she  was  eager  to 
scale  the  barriers  of  race  and  color  to  meet  the  one 
whom  she  knew  to  be  her  soul's  love. 

Notwithstanding  Desdemona's  advances,  Othello 
believed  her  love  was  as  purely  ideal  in  character 
as  his  own.  Otherwise  he  would  have  appreciated 
at  once  the  ill-assorted  nature  of  a  marriage  with  a 
woman  of  superior  race,  for  at  his  age  he  would 
appreciate  fully  the  impossibility  of  sudh  a  union 
proceeding  properly  to  family  ends  and  introducing 
hybrid  children  to  the  circle  of  Venetian  society  in 
which  Desdemona  belonged.  A  white  wife  and 
children  of  her  blood  and  his  could  only  exist  in 
dreams.  Othello  was  not  a  thorough  man  of  the 
world,  but  he  understood  this;  and  he  knew  the 
different  phases  of  attraction  and  could  distinguish 
between  them  as  Desdemona  could  not.  She 
simply  felt  that  she  loved  Othello,  and  did  not  stop 
to  ask  whether  the  affection  was  different  from 
what  should  be  experienced  at  the  entrance  to  mar- 


246  THE   OTHELLO. 

riage  or  was  of  such  a  nature  as  could  never  be 
consummated  in  matrimony.  She  followed  her  im- 
pulses without  questioning  them.  Othello  did  that 
too  in  a  degree,  but  not  so  blindly  as  Desdemona. 
A  man  of  his  age,  character,  and  experience  would 
certainly  consider  his  situation  and  the  meaning  of 
marriage  far  enough  to  realize  that  as  between 
them  it  must  be  of  the  heart  and  the  soul,  but  could 
never  pass  beyond  such  bounds  to  somatic  comple- 
tion. He  then  hoped  or  believed  that  Desdemona 
would  be  supremely  content  to  have  it  so;  he  had 
perfect  faith  he  could  live  permanently  in  that 
supersensuous  elevation. 

Accustomed  as  the  Elizabethans  were  to  look  for- 
ward at  once  from  the  wedding  to  the  appearance 
of  offspring  as  the  most  desired  and  only  adequate 
end,  they  could  only  think  it  most  natural  Othello 
should  consider  that  result,  and,  if  true  to  a  noble 
nature,  would  realize  that  his  love  for  Desdemona 
could  not  properly  go  on  to  consummation. 
Keenly  aroused  and  interested  in  the  black  man, 
whom  they  had  regarded  at  first  with  disgust,  they 
gave  a  delighted  ear  as  he  told  the  Senate — in  a 
strain  so  like  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  renunciation  of 
"  foul  Cupid,"  in  a  popular  epithalamy  of  the  time 
— that  the  passions  of  youth  were  dead  in  him,  and 
those  of  manhood  absolutely  controlled. 

Othello's  lifelong  dreams  of  womanhood  were 
summed  up  in  Desdemona,  and  when  he  gave  her 
the  sacred  token  which  came  from  his  mother  she 
became  the  impersonation  of  all  the  lovely  feminine 
qualities  he  had  carried  in  his  memory  as  coming 


OTHELLO'S   CHARACTER  AND   CAREER.      247 

from  the  past  as  well  as  of  all  those  which  fancy 
had  painted  in  the  future.  If  Desdemona  idealized 
him,  he  made  an  apotheosis  of  her.  She  became 
the  embodiment  of  all  that  was  beautiful  and  wor- 
shipful. It  has  been  observed  by  many  writers  that 
Othello  has  little  of  the  lover  in  his  conduct,  but 
the  remark  should  be  limited  to  the  self-desire  of  a 
lover.  He  had  a  fervent  love  of  Desdemona,  and 
the  quality  of  it  should  not  be  questioned  because 
it  was  so  completely  free  of  selfishness  or  self-de- 
sire as  to  seem  more  like  that  of  a  father  than  a 
lover  or  husband.  Another  remark  widely  quoted 
is  that  Othello  was  not  actuated  by  jealousy  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  term.  Ever  since  Coleridge  made 
this  observation  it  has  met  general  concurrence, 
but  neither  Coleridge  nor  those  who  quote  him  with 
approval  have  explained  why  they  can  say  it  was 
not  jealousy  that  moved  Othello.  It  was  not  per- 
sonal jealousy — not  the  fear  of  losing  to  another 
what  he  would  save  for  his  own  selfish  gratification 
— that  wrung  the  soul  of  the  Moor,  but  a  double 
agony  over  the  betrayal  of  his  faith  and  the  ruin 
of  his  ideals  joined  for  one  awful  hour  to  a  thirst 
for  vengeance;  but  with  this  latter  rage  quickly 
subsiding  into  a  demand  for  Desdemona's  death 
as  an  expiation  to  holy  justice. 

The  tropical  passion  which  rose  in  Othello  when 
he  lost  faith  in  Desdemona  came  like  the  terrific 
recoil  and  reaction  of  a  tornado  following  an  un- 
easy and  unnatural  calm.  His  rage  is  a  tremen- 
dous reversal  and  reaction  from  the  humility  in 
which   his   married   life    began.     After   his    awful 


248  THE   OTHELLO. 

wrath  is  started  he  tells  lago  it  shall  "  ne'er 
ebb  to  humble  love "  again.  That  expression 
— humble  love — was  finely  chosen  to  charac- 
terize his  early  affection  for  Desdemona  before 
suspicion  came  over  him.  His  love  was  hum- 
ble indeed;  too  conscious  of  his  own  racial  in- 
feriority to  attain  any  assured  sense  of  equality  and 
safety.  His  efforts  to  reassure  himself  were  piti- 
ful. It  is  against  all  previous  interpretations,  but 
I  insist  Othello  was  ill  at  ease  from  the  beginning; 
that  beneath  the  calm  exterior  Shakespeare  in- 
tended us  to  see  a  restless  feeling  stirring  from  the 
outset;  and  that  the  final  revolt  from  Desdemona 
was  a  growth  from  this  germ,  not  an  instantaneous 
and  unaccountable  collapse. 

Othello  was  a  man  of  a  fine  sense  of  propriety 
and  honor,  and  with  his  regard  for  appearances 
could  not  have  felt  entirely  satisfied  when  he  stole 
away  the  old  man's  daughter.  For  the  general  of 
the  army  to  disturb  the  decorum  of  a  senator's 
family,  and  vex  in  this  way  that  high  Venetian 
society  which  had  honored  him,  was  a  serious  mat- 
ter, and  Othello  must  have  had  early  misgivings  in 
regard  to  it.  We  note  Othello's  sense  of  pro- 
priety in  such  incidents  as  his  fine  deference  to  the 
Senate,  his  desire  for  accommodation  for  Desde- 
mona suited  to  her  station  and  breeding,  and  his 
severe  arraignment  "  for  Christian  shame  "  of  the 
men  engaged  in  the  night  brawl.  Cassio  hardly 
dared  hope  for  pardon  from  Othello  after  showing 
himself  "  so  indiscreet  an  officer."  A  man  so  pru- 
dent and  almost  punctilious  in  his  bearing  could 


OTHELLO'S  CHARACTER  AND   CAREER.      249 

not  have  taken  a  senator's  daughter  away  in  elope- 
ment without  some  misgivings  arising  soon  after, 
if  not  at  the  time.  His  anxiety  is  betrayed  in  his 
efforts  at  reassurance.  At  his  first  appearance  we 
find  him  laying  stress  upon  the  legaHty  of  his  mar- 
riage title  as  something  to  atone  for  its  social 
irregularity;  intimating  also  that  the  purity  of  his 
intent,  or  "perfect  soul,"  must  save  it  from  any  taint 
of  inter-racial  grossness.  Almost  immediately, 
however,  he  has  to  face  the  scurvy  and  provoking 
charges  of  Brabantio,  who  declares  the  marriage  a 
thing  of  horror  into  which  Desdemona  could  have 
been  led  only  by  witchcraft  or  the  use  of  drugs  to 
arouse  unnatural  appetite.  Such  accusations  must 
have  cut  Othello  to  the  quick;  and  it  is  evi- 
dent, notwithstanding  the  momentary  flush  of  con- 
fidence which  followed  his  victory  before  the  Sen- 
ate, he  could  not  keep  away  the  doubt  arising  from 
the  unnaturalness  of  the  marriage,  but  secretly  or 
half-consciously  at  the  core  of  his  heart  he  feared 
Brabantio  might  have  understood  the  ultimate 
feeling  and  state  of  heart  in  which  Desdemona 
would  settle  better  than  did  the  maiden  herself. 

A  man  of  Othello's  age  and  character  could  not 
but  fear  that  the  young  girl's  romantic  sentiments 
might  have  swept  her  into  a  marriage  from  which 
she  would  recoil  in  time.  At  first  Othello  reassured 
himself  with  the  belief  of  the  poetic  relations  of  the 
marriage  forever  saving  it  from  any  grossness 
offensive  to  Desdemona  or  calculated  to  taint  her 
love,  but  it  was  inevitable  that  fears  should  attack 
him  from  an  opposite  direction.     Othello's  logic 


250  THE   OTHELLO, 

Stopped  short  of  the  truth  when  he  argued  a  cure 
for  the  unnaturalness  of  the  marriage  throug'h  the 
preservation  of  platonic  relations.  The  union  was 
still  unnatural.  A  mere  negative  saving  or  avoid- 
ance of  offense  to  Desdemona  could  not  supply  the 
lack  of  culmination  and  consummation  necessary 
in  the  order  of  nature  to  the  perfection  of  marital 
love.  Just  as  Othello  strove  to  get  into  the  clouds, 
he  was  certain  to  lose  any  secure  footing  on  earth. 
In  all  Shakespeare's  studies  and  developments  of. 
purified  yet  purely  human  love  there  is  nothing  at 
once  more  beautiful  and  deeply  pathetic  than  the 
representation  it  gets  in  this  play.  Why  should 
not  so  pure  and  noble  a  purpose  as  possessed 
Othello  have  been  rewarded  with  success?  Must 
we  understand  that  love  in  marriage  can  never  be 
from  the  first  purely  spiritual  and  survive? 
Shakespeare  does  not  make  that  assertion,  but  he 
implies  some  fatal  lack  in  the  relations  of  Othello 
and  Desdemona,  and  it  adds  wonderfully  to  the 
pathos  of  their  situation  that  they  could  not  suc- 
ceed when  their  motives  were  so  high.  At  any 
rate,  Othello's  early  uneasiness  over  the  mere  social 
irregularity  of  a  marriage  by  elopement  grows 
steadily  into  graver  doubts  and  fears,  despite  his 
efforts  to  hide  the  fact  from  himself  and  despite 
occasional  moments  of  reassurance.  His  super- 
ebullient  joy  on  meeting  Desdemona  at  Cyprus 
is  really  pathetic.  That  she  should  have  survived 
the  ocean  storm  was  indeed  a  matter  for  rejoicing; 
but  that  Othello  should  find  the  fact  of  no  change 
in  her  love  after  a  separation  of  two  weeks  some- 


OTHELLO'S   CHARACTER  AND    CAREER.      2$^ 

thing  to  fill  his  soul  with  a  happiness  almost  too 
great  for  earth,  was  painfully  significant.  But 
Othello  was  right;  it  was  too  much  of  joy;  it  could 
not  last.  Othello  could  not  look  at  his  black  hand 
or  catch  his  face  in  a  mirror  without  quailing;  with- 
out fearing  that  Desdemona's  continued  fidelity  to 
him  would  be  too  good  to  be  true.  Simply  be- 
cause of  Othello's  consciousness  of  the  marriage 
being  an  unnatural  one  whether  consummated  or 
not,  and  as  much  against  nature  one  way  as  the 
other,  he  was  in  a  state  of  mind  to  absorb  the  poison 
of  lago's  insinuations  without  power  to  make  any 
considerable  resistance  to  them.  At  first  he 
thought  non-consummation  the  safety  of  the  mar- 
riage; afterward  feared  that  very  thing  as  a  lack 
which  would  cause  Desdemona  to  turn  to  a  man 
more  fit  in  race  and  blood.  "  Haply  for  I  am 
black."  But  even  before  the  first  whisperings  of 
the  temptation  scene  by  lago  the  self-engendered 
doubts  of  the  Moor  were  telling  on  him.  Sub- 
jected to  the  tests  of  dramatic  art,  the  extreme 
severity  of  the  punishment  visited  by  Othello  on  the 
reveler  caught  in  the  night  brawl  can  receive  but 
one  interpretation.  That  was  an  occasion  with  full 
liberty  of  feasting,  when  the  restraints  of  military 
life  were  released  for  a  joyous  celebration,  and  yet 
Othello,  "  the  man  whom  passion  could  not  shake," 
manifests  extreme  severity,  admits  his  blood  is 
getting  the  upper  hand  of  his  judgment,  and  over- 
whelms his  most  trusted  friend  with  disgrace  and 
ruin.  That  means  simply  that  the  Moor  was  not 
himself;  that  the  strain  of  his  situation  was  telling 


c 


252  THE   OTHELLO. 

Upon  him  powerfully  before  the  beginning  of  the 
temptation  scene.  At  the  earlier  period  of  the 
action,  and  before  lago's  first  whisper  could  have 
had  any  effect,  we  have  that  significant  outburst 
over  Desdemona: 

"  Excellent  wretch!    Perdition  catch  my  soul, 
But  I  do  love  thee !  and  when  I  love  thee  not, 
Chaos  is  come  again." 

Readers  who  will  consent  that  Shakespeare 
used  both  light  and  shade,  will  not  fail  to  see 
the  significance  of  this  speech.  Johnson  says 
the  meaning  is:  "When  my  love  is  for  a  mo- 
ment suspended  by  suspicion  I  have  noth- 
ing in  my  mind  but  discord,  tumult,  perturbation, 
and  confusion."  The  feeling  undoubtedly  is  that 
described,  but  at  that  time  it  could  notjcomejrom 
actual  suspicion.  There  had  been  nothing  so  far 
to  warrant  or  excite  suspicion;  the  fears  that  have 
arisen  self-engendered  in  Othello's  mind  are 
simply  as  to  whether  Desdemona  can  continue  per- 
manently happy  and  content  as  his  wife.  At  times 
Othello  has  a  feeling  of  loving  trust  and  confidence 
in  the  platonic  marriage  that  satisfies,  but  it  gives 
way  to  returning  anxiety — chaos  will  come  again. 
But  up  to  this  point  Othello  assuredly  has  no  sus- 
picion of  misconduct  in  Desdemona.  lago  has  not 
yet  hissed. 

The  great  difficulty  with  the  commentators  in 
endeavoring  to  account  for  the  suddenness  of 
Othello's  turn  to  jealousy,  and  his  quick  response 
to  lago's  poison,  has  been  in  not  seeing  how  his 


OTHELLO'S  CHARACTER  AND   CAREER.      253 

mind  was  working  toward  such  a  state  from  the 
opening  scene.  They  have  insisted  on  regarding 
Othello  as  in  enjoyment  of  the  most  perfect,  un- 
clouded, complete  wedded  happiness,  so  that  the 
misery  of  his  turn  to  jealousy  may  be  more  dread- 
ful in  comparison,  but  that  leaves  the  change  too 
sudden  to  be  rational  and  the  string  of  incidents 
denoting  an  undercurrent  of  anxiety  in  the  mind  of 
the  Moor  from  the  first  without  any  explanation. 
Professor  Wilson  says  if  we  are  to  have  a  beauti- 
ful palace  wrecked  by  an  earthquake  we  must  first 
see  it  standing  in  perfected  beaiUy,  but  this  can- 
not apply  to  Othello,  for  his  wedded  love  was  not 
capable  of  full  development,  as  he  well  knew.  The 
pathos  lies  there — in  what  never  was  Jo_b£^iiQt_irL 
the  ruin  of  a  perfected^  love.  Where  bride  and 
groom  are  of  the  same  race  the  beautiful  idealism 
of  early  afifection  passes  by  natural  efflorescence 
into  perfected  marital  affection,  but  that  could  not 
be  in  this  case.  Professor  Wilson's  theory,  more- 
over, utterly  fails  to  give  the  "  tragic  fault." 

If  Othello's  love  was  of  such  a  nature  that  it  could 
be  built  up  to  perfection,  why  should  it  have  been 
ruined?  Would  that  be  artistic  drama  worthy 
Shakespeare  or  any  other  writer  capable  of  a  true 
romantic  tragedy?  Where,  then,  would  be  the 
trag-ic  principle  working  r^g^'rtrt  t^^^  mnrringi^  frfm 
thp  bpg-i>ning?  Depend  upon  it,  the  **  Othello  " 
was  not  wrought  out  on  any  such  lines  of  crudity. 
Instead  we  see  a  germ  of  anxiety  in  the  mind  of 
Othello  when  he  first  stepped  upon  the  stage.  In 
its  incipiency  his  doubt  was  only  as  to  the  inde- 


254  THE  OTHELLO. 

corum  of  a  runaway  match  between  himself  and  the 
daughter  of  a  senator.  This  fear  grew  silently  but 
steadily,  and  soon  took  on  a  new  and  graver  char- 
acter. He  began  to  doubt  whether  the  inoffensive 
platonic  relations  could  save  a  marriage  which, 
even  when  regarded  from  that  standpoint,  was  still 
against  nature.  Even  during  that  brief  hour  when 
all  outer  circumstances  seemed  favorable  to  his 
peace,  this  man  of  serene  self-poise  and  splendid 
self-discipline  betrays  beneath  the  calm  exterior  an 
uneasiness  which  had  grown  into  ominous  strength 
before  lago  more  than  began  to  feel  his  way.  No 
wonder,  then,  the  temptation  scene  swept  him  so 
quickly  from  his  feet.  The  ground  was  all  ready 
for  lago  when  he  began. 

Left  to  himself,  Othello  could  not  have  escaped 
anxiety  and  doubt  of  the  marriage  being  prosper- 
ous and  happy,  but  he  never  would  have  suspected 
Desdemona.  He  feared  she  had  misunderstood 
herself,  and  was  carried  into  a  marriage  in  which 
she  could  not  be  permanently  happy,  not  that  she 
could  be  guilty  or  corrupt.  A  man  of  Othello's 
tender  conscience  and  fine  sense  of  honor  and  pro- 
priety could  not  have  avoided  these  doubts  and 
fears  by  any  possible  effort.  Pity  him  we  must, 
but  we  cannot  deny  that  Othello  deserved  this  un- 
easiness. The  marriage  was  essentially  wrong, 
and  he  knew  it.  A  young  girl  might  be  deceived 
about  it  and  have  thought  the  platonic  idealism 
could  endure  prosperously  through  life,  but  a  man 
of  Othello's  years  should  have  known  that  wedlock 
has  to  do  not  merely  with  the  sentiments  of  the 


OTHELLO'S  CHARACTER  AND   CAREER.      ^55 

parties,  but  with  the  appearances  it  presents  to  the 
world,  and  cannot  safely  give  offense  to  society. 
We  cannot  deny  that  fortune  did  owe  a  fall  to  the 
''  thick  lips,'*  and  for  the  very  reason  of  the  thick 
lips.  Roderigo  was  only  reasonable  when  he  pre- 
dicted the  Moor's  fall  for  trying  to  "  carry  't  thus  " 
with  a  high  hand,  although  we  know  at  heart  he 
was  humble  and  anxious  enough  about  the  mar- 
riage. His  act,  however,  was  one  against  certain 
obvious  proprieties,  essentially  one  of  presump- 
tion, and,  as  he  soon  felt  in  his  own  conscience,  was 
destined  to  a  bad  ending.  Othello's  fate  is  the  re- 
sult of  his  own  error,  but  it  comes  through  motives 
which  command  our  sympathy,  and  just  there  we 
have  the  perfection  of  tragic  art.  Yet  this  grand 
plot  has  been  hidden  for  centuries  behind  a  false  in- 
terpretation supplying  discord  and  sensualism 
where  the  great  dramatist  put  the  beauty  and  woe 
of  consummate  tragedy. 

When  lago  began  to  rub  Othello's  anxious  fears 
of  the  marriage  into  positive  suspicions  of  Desde- 
mona,  the  Moor  quickly  changed  from  a  state  of 
"  humble  love  "  into  one  of  an  indignation  which 
was  as  righteous  to  him  as  it  is  terrible  to  us.  The 
transition  is  one  of  the  finest  things  in  tragedy. 
His  wrath  over  betrayal  is  the  more  intense  be- 
cause his  love  had  been  humble  and  lowly,  drawing 
fears  and  anxieties  only  from  his  own  weak  merits. 
To  find  that  he  had  been  humbling  himself  in  this 
spirit  before  one  of  the  basest  creatures  of  earth  or 
hell — a  wanton  woman — tore  his  soul  with  agony, 
but  it  was  not  a  fury  that  had  anything  in  common 


T 


25^  THE  OTHELLO. 

with  sensual  jealousy.  The  wrong  done  was  not 
one.  to  his  proper  delights,  but  to  honor.  His  fury 
rose,  not  over  his  own  loss,  for  he  had  "  not  wanted 
what  was  stolen,"  but  that  another  should  obtain 
wrongfully  and  lasciviously  that  which  he  himself 
had  deemed  too  sacred  even  for  a  husband,  under 
the  sanctity  of  marriage.  Even  then  he  disclosed 
no  wounded  selfishness,  no  injured  self-desire. 
Dowden  comes  close  to  the  truth  when  he  says  the 
passion  of  Othello  is  "  rather  the  agony  of  being 
compdled  t6*^atelTia!"wFich lie  supremely' Toved7'^ 
It  was  indeed  even  more  than  that — the  surpassing 
agony  of  having  his  faith  in  woman  and  woman- 
hood utterly  cast  down  and  ruined. 

Until  the  temptation  by  lago,  the  Moor  had  be- 
lieved— truthfully  enough — that  Desdemona  was 
content  with  his  marital  absence  because  she  be- 
lieved it  only  temporary.  He  knew  hers  was  the 
devoted  love  of  a  woman  who  could  not  be  satis- 
fied ultimately  without  an  absolute  consecration  of 
herself  to  wifehood  and  maternity.  Facing  the 
prospect  of  a  cruel  disillusionment  of  his  bride  or 
a  worse  wrong  upon  her  by  full  acceptance  in  mar- 
riage, the  Moor  was  thrust  by  his  unfortunate  wed- 
ding into  a  mental  struggle  which  grew  worse  with 
every  passing  hour.  He  had  encountered  and 
averted  the  trial  of  the  nuptial  celebration,  but 
he  could  not  hope  to  repeat  that  fortunate  yet  un- 
happy escape  often.  Wrestling  with  this  insolu- 
ble problem,  Othello,  to  cite  his  own  marvelously 
apt  term,  was  indeed  "  wrought,"  and  worked  to 
such  a  pitch  that  at  the  time  of  the  joyous  jubilee 


OTHELLO'S  CHARACTER  AND   CAREER.      257 

his  former  self-poise  had  given  way  to  a  nervous! 
tension  and  anxiety  which  he  himself  confessed 
had  clouded  or  "  collied  "  his  judgment.  It  was 
not  until  Othello  was  thus  harassed,  worn,  and  pre- 
pared for  the  tempter  that  lago  was  permitted  to 
work  upon  him.  It  was  not  the  noble  Moor  in  his 
naturally  strong  confidence  and  trust,  but  the  anx- 
ious and  worried  Othello,  struggling  with  a  prob- 
lem too  great  for  solution,  who  became  an  easy  and 
yet  pitiable  victim  of  lago.  When  lago  first  sug- 
gested that  Desdemona's  content  was  not  really 
that  of  a  bride  waiting  in  modest  expectation  for 
her  bridegroom's  reserve  to  be  ended,  but  of  one 
\Vho  had  already  recoiled  from  his  blackness  to  a 
man  more  fit  in  race  and  color,  the  cruel  slander 
could  seem  only  too  true  and  probable  to  the 
harassed  Moor.  ''Why  did  I  marry?"  Even  be- 
fore, he  was  convinced  no  good  was  coming  of  the 
union. 

"  O  curse  of  marriage, 
That  we  can  call  these  delicate  creatures  ours. 
And  not  their  appetites." 

Because  of  the  condition  of  mind  and  body  into 
which  he  had  been  thrust  by  the  circumstances  of 
his  marriage,  Othello  was  prepared  for  the  hand 
of  lago;  and  his  quick  fall  to  suspicion,  misery,  and 
the  awful  rage  of  a  soul  ravaged  of  its  ideals  and  its 
faith,  is  as  natural  and  credible  as  it  is  mournful. 

A  barbarian  by  birth,  removed  from  his  mother 
in  childhood  and  reared  in  the  camp,  Othello  was 
still  a  man  of  such  nature  nothing  could  take  him 


258  THE   OTHELLO. 

beyond  womanly  influence.  His  peculiar  life  had 
removed  him  from  women,  not  from  woman.  It 
is  one  of  the  mysteries  and  fascinations  of  the  great 
Othello,  whose  immediate  ancestry  was  traced  to 
the  desert,  and  who  was  himself  a  professional  in 
the  trade  of  war,  that  he  had  nothing  of  brutal  force 
about  him,  but  was  naturally  rich  in  all  manly  quali- 
ties; as  Turnbull  says,  "Shakespeare's  most  per- 
fect gentleman."  Especially  is  this  to  be  noticed 
before  the  troubles  and  complications  springing 
from  the  clandestine  inter-racial  marriage  had  time 
to  grow  and  twine  themselves  about  him  like  fet- 
ters, but  in  no  respect  is  the  high  quality  of  his 
civilization  and  religion  better  displayed  than  in  his 
reverence  for  womanhood.  It  was  a  sad  day  and 
hour  that  such  a  man  was  led  into  a  marriage  which 
was  improper  in  its  secrecy  and  evasion  as  well  as 
in  a  hopeless  antagonism  of  race  and  blood. 
Othello  could  not  escape  the  consequences  of  his 
own  act,  high  as  were  his  motives  and  plans.  His 
punishment  was  doubly  severe,  however,  and  seems 
to  embody  the  very  irony  of  fate  in  bringing  a  man 
of  such  reverence  for  womanhood  along  the  paths 
of  a  marriage  of  platonic  idealism  to  an  abyss  where 
his  faith  in  the  virtue  of  woman  was  wrongfully 
ruined  and  himself  destroyed. 

The  tremendous  revulsion  in  the  soul  of  Othello 
which  carried  him  from  the  extreme  of  idealism  of 
woman  to  the  opposite  one  of  loathing  and  abhor- 
rence is  expressed  in  the  terrific  outburst  against  | 
Desdemona  in  the  fourth  act,  where  he  declares  he  | 
could  have  endured  it  to  have  poverty,  disease,  im-  f 


OTHELLO'S  CHARACTER  AND   CAREER,      259 

prisonment,  and  odium  heaped  upon  him, — could 
have  sustained  even  the  finger  of  scorn  pointed  at 
him  as  a  man  betrayed  by  a  woman, — ^but  he 
charges  Desdemona  with  something  worse  in  awful 
guilt  than  the  falsity  or  dishonor  which  any  woman 
bearing  the  name  of  wife  could  inflict  on  any  com- 
mon husband,  for  it  has  been  in  her  power  to  strike 
with  worse  cruelty  than  that — and  she  has  done  it. 
She  has  wounded  him — where? 

'•  But  there,  where  I  have  garner'd*  up  my  heart, 
Where  either  I  must  live,  or  bear  no  Hfe." 

No  mere  charge  of  wounded  selfishness,  of  giv- 
ing to  another  what  was  not  so  much  as  thought 
of  by  him,  but  of  destroying  his  ideals  of  honor  and 
laying  waste  those  high  places  of  the  soul  where  a 
soldier  had  placed  woman  as  the  symbol  of  crown- 
ing fidelity  and  truth;  where  the  idolized  figure  of 
the  mother  was  to  have  stood  by  the  idealized  bride. 
If  Desdemona  was  false.  Heaven  mocked  itself — 
his  faith  in  the  honor  and  fidelity  of  man  or  woman 
was  gone,  the  ideals  so  long  carried  in  mind  and 
heart  w*ere  polluted,  and  he  could  no  longer  believe 
in  decency  upon  earth.  Everything  that  he  had 
learned  to  value  and  cherish  on  his  upward  path 
from  barbarism  to  civilization  seemed  to  crumble 
in  an  hour,  and  cast  him  back  to  savagery  under  the 
worst  of  all  calamities  to  such  a  man — shattered 
faith  in  human  nature. 

*Delius :  "The  word  is  finely  chosen;  to  gamer  is  to 
store  that  on  which  life  depends." 


i 


260  THE   OTHELLO. 

It  was  not  one  woman — Desdemona — ^that  was 
lost  to  Othello,  but  all  the  higher  world  of  senti- 
ment and  honor.  A  love  so  sweeping  in  its  ruin 
had  been  founded,  not  in  desire,  but  in  holy  renun- 
ciation, distant  adoration.  It  was  not  the  affection 
which,  abused  by  one  woman,  may  yet  turn  with 
confidence  to  another. 

Boas  gives  an  admirable  exposition  of  the  na- 
ture of  Othello's  affection,  saying  as  it  is  fed  from 
imagination  it  can  be  poisoned  through  the  same 
source.  Boas  is  a  high  authority,  and  his  charac- 
terization of  the  love  of  Othello  as  purely  ideal  is 
so  far  worthy  his  penetrative  analysis, — a  most  ac- 
curate response  to  the  true  chords  sounding  in  the 
nature  of  the  Moor, — but  unfortunately  he  accepts 
tlie  common  version  of  the  plot,  so  fatal  to  appro- 
priate, to  true,  idealism,  for  in  his  account  of  the 
occurrences  after  the  drinking  scene  in  the  second 
act  he  says  "  a  scuffle  follows  which  summons 
Othello  from  his  marriage  bed."  If  that  be  true, 
how  are  we  to  keep  the  Moor  and  his  bride  at  the 
exaltation  suited  to  their  characters  and  the  action? 
It  is  not  merely  useless,  but  offensive,  to  contend 
that  in  inter-racial  marriage  the  ideal  could  be 
helped,  not  injured,  by  a  consummation  of  the 
union.  Boas  himself  says  if  Desdemona  had  ever 
ceased  to  regard  Othello  from  the  point  of  fancy 
and  romance,  and  had  looked  at  his  real  possibili- 
ties, "  she  might  perchance  have  turned  shudder- 
ing away."  And  yet  he  tells  us  she  was  devoted  to 
marriage  with  this  black  man  and  continued  to 
dwell  in  the  realms  of  fairy.    It  is  impossible.    Be- 


OTMElws  Character  and  career.    261 

tween  white  and  black  such  a  thing  could  not  be. 
Brabantio  thought  witchcraft,  drugs,  or  love  phil- 
ters bought  of  mountebanks  necessary  to  inspire 
Desdemona  with  a  love  for  Othello;  assuredly 
something  as  blinding  must  have  been  needful  it 
Boas  is  right  and  we  are  still  to  regard  the  union 
from  the  standpoint  of  elevated  and  elevating  sen- 
timent. Desdemona  thought  love  could  glorify  it, 
but  was  deluded  by  her  excessive  spirituality.  Na- 
ture could  not  so  preposterously  err. 

The  awfulness  of  Desdemona's  offense  in 
Othello's  eyes  was  in  giving  to  another  what  her 
own  husband  did  not  even  think  of — he  who  had 
sought  to  place  her  upon  a  plane  high  above  com- 
mon wifehood  with  no  duty  of  person  toward  him, 
too  much  like  a  goddess  to  assume  any  physical 
relation  or  be  thought  of  for  a  selfish  reason  or  de- 
sire. As  lago  said,  she  had  played  the  god  with 
his  weak  function.  His  love  had  been  best  ex- 
pressed in  his  first  gift  to  her — the  handkerchief, 
the  antique  token  which  came  from  his  mother, 
which  had  been  guarded  with  religious  care  and 
kept  with  other  ideals  in  the  part  of  his  soul  where 
for  so  many  years  he  had  ''  garner'd  up  his  heart." 
When  lago  tried  to  poison  him  with  suspicion  he 
resisted  other  proofs  for  a  time,  but  was  unmanned 
at  the  first  appearance  of  supposed  dishonor  to  the 
antique  token.  She  who  was  to  guard  and  save 
the  shrine  of  his  heart  was  betraying  it — the  mere 
appearance  of  such  dishonor,  coming  on  the  already 
anxious  and  troubled  mind,  swept  away  Othello's 
prudence  and  reason,  destroyed  all  calm  and  care. 


f 


262  THE  OTHELLO. 

and  caused  him  credulously  to  believe  impossible 
things,  bellow  horrible  obscenity,  and  finally  mur- 
der Desdemona  in  her  "  virgin  bed." 

If  truly  jealous,  Othello  would  have  killed  Cassio 
\  first — would  not  have  allowed  him  to  live  a  stroke 
I  of  the  clock  after  knowing  of  his  apparent  gloating 
I  avowal  of  guilt.     But  Cassio  was  not  in  the  mind 
f  of    Othello     the    supreme    embodiment    of    guilt, 
U  simply   a  common   adulterer   who   could   be   dis- 
\  patched  at  another  time  or  by  another  hand;  the 
I  immediate  duty,  the  supreme  call  of  honor  and 
'  justice,  was  for  him  to  take  the  life  of  the  criminal 
of  double  guilt,  the  woman  whom  he  had  soug'ht 
to  put  above  the  life  and  lot  of  her  sex  in  mar- 
riage, and  who  in  basest  treachery  and  ingratitude 
had  taken  herself  below  it.     She  was  the  worse  for 
never  having  been  a  wife  to  him.     She  had  not 
made  him  share  her  favors  with  another,  but  kept 
him  a  duped  outcast  from  them.     Worse  than  all 
else,  she  had  wrecked  his  faith  in  womanhood  and 
womanly  honor,  and  with  these  ideals  gone  from 
the  world  Othello  had  no  desire  to  live.     If  there 
was  not  at  the  summit  of  civilization  the  figure  of 
a  woman  embodying  the  highest  ideals  of  earth, 
Heaven  mocked  itself  to  Othello. 

With  the  faith  and  the  ideals  so  long  enshrined 
where  he  had  "  garner'd  up  his  heart "  torn  and 
dishonored,  the  whole  manly  nature  seemed  on  the 
point  of  going  to  pieces.  If  not  actually  insane, 
Othello  was  for  one  awful  hour  perilously  near  the 
border  line:  the  foulness  of  his  language  at  that 
time,  so  strikingly  in  contrast  with  his  normal  state. 


OTHELLO'S  CHARACTER  AND   CAREER,      263 

indicates  the  extent  of  the  mental  and  moral  ruin 
— a  fine  dramatic  stroke  lost  on  those  who  com- 
plain of  Othello's  changed  and  fearfully  vile  expres- 
sions. As  in  the  instances  sometimes  noticed 
where  insanity  causes  the  tongues  of  refined  Chris- 
tian women  to  grow  foul,  so  it  was  with  Othello 
under  a  disturbance  and  perturbation  almost  mor- 
tal to  the  mind  and  showing  even  in  the  language 
the  ruin  that  had  been  wrought. 

Poor  Othello!  Misjudged  even  in  his  ravings 
when  will  and  mind  were  almost  gone,  he  is  also 
wrongly  censured  for  his  turn  against  Desdemona 
by  writers  who  fail  to  see  the  course  of  cruel 
preparation  through  which  he  passed,  and  that  his 
fears  sprang  from  his  own  humility.     True,  he  said: 

'*  Not  from  mine  own  weak  merits  will  I  draw 
The  smallest  fear  or  doubt  of  her  revolt." 

"Her  revolt!"     Not  at  first  a  fear  of  waning/ ;/ 
affection  or  infidelity,  but  something  over  which /y 
she  herself  would  not  have  control — something  pro-'^^ 
voked  by  his  own  repelling  unfitness — a  revolt. 

'He  says  he  will  not  fear  such  a  result,  but  he  pro- 
ceeds to  do  so  nevertheless — ^to  create  doubts  based 
solely  on  his  own  weak  merits,  as  if  fate  itself  forced 
him  to  it.  With  nothing  in  Desdemona's  conduct 
to  sustain  a  doubt,  he  begins  to  suspect  that 
his  race,  his  color,  must  compel  her  to  turn 
from  him;  and,  once  fired  with  this  suspicion,  the 
fact  of  the  platonic  union  only  feeds  the  flames. 
Had  the  pair  been  able  to  enter  into  the 
ordinary    relations    of    marriage,    Othello    would 


■I 


264  THE   OTHELLO. 

have  had  the  strongest  proofs  a  woman  can 
offer  to  a  man  of  her  love  and  his  accepta- 
biHty.  Such  proofs  once  attained,  he  could 
have  had  little  fear  she  would  afterward  take  an 
aversion  to  his  blackness,  but  when  she  had  never 
accepted  it  physically,  and  he  did  not  ever  intend 
she  should,  the  ground  was  prepared  and  the  seed 
sowed  for  the  inevitable  doubt  born  of  temptation 
and  unnatural  denial.  Of  all  husbands  Othello 
most  needed  the  strongest  assurance  nature  could 
give,  yet  in  tihe  idyllic  delicacy  of  his  affection  he 
had  placed  Desdemona  where  she  was  to  supply 
none  of  the  final  proofs  that  most  disarm  suspicion 
when  enjoyed  and  most  foster  doubt  when  not  en- 
joyed. Othello's  blackness  demanded  the  very 
evidence  it  excluded.  The  vaulting  ambition  of  a 
soul  love  overleaped  itself  and  fell  on  the  other  side. 
As  Desdemona  embodied  all  that  was  precious  to 
Othello  in  culture,  refinement,  religion,  and  honor 
— all  the  inspirations  which  had  stimulated  his  up- 
ward career  from  barbarism  until  he  became  the 
chief  defender  of  a  Christian  state  from  the  Turks 
— so  when  she  seemed  to  be  false  everything  in 
civilization  dropped  away  from  the  Moor  for  a 
time.  Schlegel's  belief  of  the  reassertion  of  the 
barbarian  in  Othello  and  the  eclipse  of  his  civilized 
nature  seems  to  me  finely  correct,  with  the  quali- 
fication that  the  phenomenon  be  limited  to  one 
awful  hour  and  the  Moor  is  afterward  restored  to 
his  higher  self.  His  fury  is  that  of  a  storm  which 
quickly  passes.  He  is  so  shaken  by  the  loss  of  his 
faith  in  woman  and  his  ideals  of  honor  that  every- 


OTHELias  CHARACTER  AND  CAREER.     265 

thing  he  has  acquired  in  his  rise  from  the  barbarian 
level  appears  to  drop  from  him;  but  he  recovers 
himself  and  dedicates  his  remaining  life  to  honor, 
not  revenge.  He  finds  there  is  one  thing  left  in 
the  world — justice.  That  calls  for  Desdemona's 
death,  and  he  finally  gives  her  up  to  that,  not  to  re- 
venge. Shakespeare  would  not  permit  Othello  to 
kill  Desdemona  while  in  the  fit  of  despair  and  rage; 
the  glorious  tragedy  Which  started  with  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  platonic  marriage  was  not  to  end  in  a 
common  murder.  So  he  restores  Othello  to  a  won- 
drous calm,  requires  him  to  reascend  to  a  renewed 
belief  of  honor  and  justice  yet  alive  in  the  world, 
and  then  take  Desdemona's  life  with  the  calmness 
of  a  priest  at  the  altar;  kissing  her  dead  lips  as  free 
from  heat  of  rage  toward  her  as  he  ever  was  from 
heat  of  desire.  There  was  no  animal  jealousy  in 
Othello,  no  impulse  of  sense  in  the  motive  demand- 
ing her  death.  It  is  a  curious  circumstance  in  har- 
mony vVith  this  softened  view  of  Desdemona's  pass- 
ing that  medical  authorities  should  find  the  old  idea 
of  her  death  from  strangulation  erroneous;  the  fact 
of  her  speaking  after  the  suffocation  indicating  a 
secondary  failure  of  the  heart  or  a  fracture  of  the 
larynx  as  the  immediate  cause  of  dissolution,  re- 
lieving the  physical  suffering  and  rendering  Othello 
not  proximately  the  life-taker. 

Restoring  Othello  to  calm  and  to  renewed  faith 
in  honor  before  the  murder,  and  making  him  take 
Desdemona's  life  in  a  spirit  cA  sacrifice  to  justice, 
there  could  be  only  one  thing  lacking  to  the  most 
poignant  tragedy  ever  portrayed  in  poetry;  and  that 


266  THE   OTHELLO. 

\  was,  after  the  bloody  deed  to  have  the  Moor 
awaken  to  the  knowledge  of  Desdemona's  inno- 
cence and  know  she  died  sublimely  forgiving  and 
protecting  her  slayer.  Again  the  world  shakes  be- 
neath Othello's  feet,  life  becomes  impossible,  death 
a  relief;  but  the  fatal  draught  is  now  charged  with 

j  unspeakable  sorrow.  The  anguish  of  lost  love  first 
left  Othello  ready  to  give  up  life,  until  the  call  of 
honor  summoned  him  to  duty  again;  now  with 
Desdemona  gone  from  this  world,  and  by  his  hand, 
but  with  her  truth  and  beauty  all  restored  and  shin- 
ing resplendent,  he  cannot  live  longer  in  the  life 
from  which  he  thrust  her. 

I  insist  it  was  only  for  one  bitter  hour  of  despair 
Othello  fell  back  to  barbarism,  and  in  his  ultimate 
character  the  Moor  belongs  rather  to  an  advanced 
civilization.  Never  must  we  lose  sight  of  the  Moor 
as  a  man  who  had  fought  his  way  up  a  long  ascent 
from  barbarism  to  civilization.  Evidently  intend- 
ing him  for  a  popular  hero,  Shakespeare  makes  him 
embody  the  cherished  martial  concepts  of  his  time 
as  to  forcefulness  and  energy  of  character,  but  in  a 
way  to  harmonize  such  powers  with  conscience  and 
religion,  thus  advancing  him  beyond  coarse 
chieftains  and  warriors.  More  than  that,  as  we  be- 
gin to  comprehend  the  elevation  of  Othello  in  deal- 
ing with  Desdemona,  we  recognize  a  hero  who  is 
not  merely  abreast  of  the  best  civilization  of  his 
own  time  in  spirit,  but  one  who  had  passed  far  be- 
yond it  and  displayed  the  reverence  for  woman 
which  is  now  the  unerring  modern  test  of  human 
advancement.     Othello  was  not  a  man  of  learning. 


OTHELLO'S  CHARACTER  AND   CAREER.     267 

and  Shakespeare  never  heard  the  scientific  reason 
which  makes  the  position  of  woman  the  best  test 
of  a  nation's  civilization.  Indeed,  even  at  this  time 
it  is  only  the  few  who  comprehend  the  position  to 
which  woman  has  been  brought  in  human  evolu- 
tion and  realize  how  it  is,  as  George  Eliot  said, 
that  in  the  delicate  vessels  of  girlhood  the  future 
of  humanity  is  carried.  The  pressure  of  advancing 
civilization  comes  first  on  woman,  and  she  takes 
its  pains  as  Winkelreid  did  the  spears  in  the  pass, 
making  way  for  advancement  and  victory.  Science 
had  not  taught  in  Shakespeare's  time  the  reasons 
which  entitle  woman  as  the  child-bearer  to  the  spe- 
cial care  and  reverence  of  progressive  and  progress- 
ing civilization,  but  Othello  is  a  most  picturesque 
and  powerful  exponent  of  the  sentiment  arising 
from  this  truth — one  who  voices  it  powerfully  be- 
cause he  feels  it  deeply.  Out  of  the  mouth  of  this 
baribarian  born,  Shakespeare  voiced  the  advanced 
sentiment  of  advanced  civilization. 

The  care  with  which  Othello  guarded  the  an- 
tique token  coming  from  his  mother,  and  held  by 
him  in  trust  for  the  future  bride,  indicates  power- 
fully and  tenderly  his  profound  reverence  for 
womanhood.  The  precious  value  he  put  on  the 
handkerchief  is  indeed  one  of  the  axial  points 
on  which  the  plot  turns  at  an  important 
development.  His  esteem  for  it  was  fairly  super- 
stitious; he  had  impressed  its  sacred  charac- 
ter on  Desdemona,  and  he  could  not  think  for  a 
moment  she  could  be  so  negligent  in  its  keeping 
as  to  lose  it.     The  fact  of  its  being  out  of  her  pos- 


26S  THE  OTHELLO. 

session  is  accepted  at  once  not  as  suggesting  acci- 
dental loss  or  carelessness,  but  as  proof  of  some- 
thing immeasurably  worse.  Othello's  preter- 
natural sensitiveness  and  anxiety  about  the  hand- 
kerchief symbolize  his  reverential  regard  for 
womanly  purity  and  honor.  He  held  out  against 
lago's  insinuations  until  the  suggestion  of  dis- 
honor to  the  handkerchief  was  started  and  caused 
to  hang  over  him  like  the  raven  over  the  infected 
house.  After  that  it  was  handkerchief,  and  yet 
again  handkerchief.  When  told  Cassio  had  been 
seen  wiping  his  beard  with  the  antique  token 
Othello's  calmness  and  care  vanished,  and  he  ex- 
claimed, "  Now  do  I  see  't  is  true."  Tlie  "  shame 
of  shames  "  was  forced  on  him  when  he  was  made 
to  see  the  sacred  talisman  that  came  from  his 
mother  a  plaything  in  the  hands  of  the  courtesan 
Bianca.  ''  Confess  " — "  handkerchief " — were  the 
two  things  summing  up  all  his  agony,  and  under  the 
fearful  pressure  of  which  he  sank  to  the  earth  with 
his  brain  in  the  clutch  of  pseudo-epilepsy.  In  the 
higher  sentiments  which  involve  relations  with 
women  and  regard  for  the  sex,  this  jealous  custo- 
dian of  the  antique  token  towers  above  the  men 
about  him — far  above  even  the  gallant  Cassio,  who 
was  otherwise  a  fit  type  of  a  chivalrous  soldier  in 
the  army  of  a  Christian  nation. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

PALLIATION    ACCOMPLISHED. 

Much  exception  is  taken  now,  at  the  close  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  to  the  doctrine  of  the  "  tragic 
fault " — the  need  that  the  principal  characters  in  a 
tragedy  must  perish  through  some  error  primarily 
their  own.  In  a  recent  popular  study  of  "  Romeo 
and  Juliet "  Dr.  Corson  protests  against  this  prin- 
ciple as  degrading  the  beautiful  love  tragedy  into 
a  cold  lesson  of  practical  prudence.  He  thinks  the 
play  a  glorification  of  sexual  love,  and  declares  the 
lesson  is  not  a  caution  to  all  young  men  and  maid- 
ens against  going  it  too  strong  in  affairs  of  the 
heart.  Surely  not.  But  does  the  principle  of  the 
"  tragic  fault "  require  such  a  conclusion? 

If  the  fate  of  the  characters  in  tragedy  does  not 
spring  from  some  error  essentially  their  own,  we 
must  expect  to  have  our  sympathies  moved  mostly 
by  sheer  fatalism,  or  unprovoked,  unaccountable 
calamity  falHng  upon  them;  just  as  we  see  disease 
and  death  coming  to  our  fellows  every  day.  The 
only  attitude  toward  such  dispensations  is  that  of 
the  submission  to  the  inevitable  and  inscrutable — 
a  necessary  course  in  real  life,  but  a  quite  unsatis- 
factory one  in  the  world  of  tragic  poetry.  There 
we  need  not  inexplicable  disaster  such  as  all  men 

360 


270  THE   OTHELLO. 

must  bow  to  resignedly:  we  want  such  misfortune 
as  the  hero  might  have  prevented,  had  he  been 
wiser,  better  guarded,  or  had  encountered  disaster 
in  a  stronger  hour;  the  pathos  which  has  resting 
upon  it  the  infinite  woe  of  the  might-not-have-been 
— ^the  heart-moving  deplorableness  of  a  sorrow 
mistakenly  self-provoked. 

The  playgoer's  attitude  is  not  that  of  one  who 
looks  upon  the  acts  of  the  stage  as  those  he  may 
emulate  or  avoid  in  the  future.  Instead,  he  is  to 
think  of  them  as  forever  past,  yet  as  if  he  might 
possibly  have  had  to  face  them,  being  wrought 
upon  when  more  exposed  to  error  perhaps  than 
now, — more  like  the  character  of  the  play, — and 
must  half-consciously  ask  whether,  if  indeed 
placed  like  the  hero  of  the  mimic  scene,  he  might 
not  have  fallen  into  the  same  misfortune.  Might 
not  we  at  some  past  time  in  our  lives  have  given 
way,  under  like  circumstances,  to  love  raptures 
like  unto  those  of  Romeo  and  Juliet — have  been 
equally  careless  or  regardless  of  filial  duty,  family 
obligations,  and  of  the  world;  neglected  all  pru- 
dence and  plunged  headlong  into  a  blind  devotion? 
Could  you  in  some  fine,  high,  unguarded  hour  have 
committed  the  error  of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  gener- 
ous as  it  was,  mistaken  as  it  was?  If,  thinking  of 
emotions  of  your  own  which  m'ay  have  carried  you 
beyond  cold  prudence,  your  answer  be  "  Yes,  yes," 
the  right  chord  is  moved,  and  you  can  never  have 
occasion  to  join  either  school  of  critics  in  haggling 
over  the  tragic  fault,  for  your  appreciation  will  be 
sympathetic,  not  coldly  intellectual.     You  get  the 


PALLIA  TION  A CCOMPLISHED.  271 

close  realistic  touch;  yoii  feel  the  sympathy;  you 
realize  the  glory. 

Heroes  of  the  battlefield  sometimes  perform  ex- 
ploits which  are  hazardous  and  in  excess  of  mili- 
tary duty,  promising  almost  certain  death,  and 
which  every  instinct  of  prudence  would  prompt 
them  to  avoid,  but  their  devotion  is  the  more  glori- 
ous for  the  recklessness.  Men  who  value  their 
lives  may  not  imitate  such  bravery,  but  as  we  read 
with  quickened  breath  we  think  in  some  high  hour 
we  might  have  done  the  like — have  recklessly, 
needlessly  perhaps,  yet  heroically,  exposed  our 
lives,  and  in  so  doing  have  done  an  incidental 
wrong,  it  may  be,  to  those  near  to  or  dependent 
upon  us,  by  taking  unnecessary  risk ;  but  the  glory, 
devotion,  and  self-surrender  would  remain. 

Desdemona's  fault  is  so  glaring  we  can  never  yv^M^v^-^ 
think^fhef  as  a  victim  of  blind  fate,  of  mysterious  rp  iJ-^^^'^ 
calamity.  She  brought  disaster  on  hersdf — sooner 
or  later  evil  must  come  to  a  Venetian  belle  who 
marries  with  a  blackamoor.  Nothing  else  is  to  be 
expected.  The  case,  therefore,  is  not  one  of  inex- 
plicable calamity;  it  must  be  assigned  to  the  class 
that  might  not  have  been;  its  pains  and  penalties 
belong  to  the  persons  who  might  have  prevented 
them,  but  did  not.*  Desdemona  mig^t  have 
avoided  the  disaster;  and  so  might  we  in  her  place, 
but — would  we?  There's  the  rub — ^there  lies  the 
leaven  of  true  tragic  effect.  If  we  had  been,  as 
Desdemona,  reared  amid  luxury  and  refinement, 

♦The  rules  of  the  drama  and  of  equity  jurisprudence 
are  here  the  same. 


272  THE   OTHELLO. 

rendered  extremely  delicate  and  refined,  with  no 
need  ever  to  reject  the  gross,  but  with  every 
facility  to  ignore  it  or  feel  it  not;  yet  in  early  youth, 
and  with  a  half-unconscious  but  most  real  loneli- 
ness of  heart,  because  the  men  about  had  moral 
natures  too  base  to  move  it,  but  with  the  ideals 
stirred  at  last  in  the  presence  of  a  man  of  glorious 
soul  who  reverenced  such  as  we,  but  who  had  been 
cruelly  cut  off  from  the  womanly  sympathy  and 
affection  he  so  nobly  merited — what  then?  Put- 
ting ourselves  in  the  place  of  such  a  maid  as  Desde- 
mona,  and  enabled  to  look  into  the  noble  heart  of 
the  blackamoor,  might  not  we  too  have  seen  his 
color  only  in  his  mind?  Might  it  not  have  been  in 
us  too  a  glorified,  if  fatal,  error? 

Desdemona  has  the  '*  tragic  fault  " — to  her  glory 
be  it  said.  Conduct  that  would  be  scandalous  in 
other  women — conduct  that  must  be  punished  in 
any  woman — in  her  case  has  to  be  followed  with 
our  sympathy  and  tears.  This  heart-moving  sor- 
row would  be  quite  different  in  effect  if  Desde- 
mona's  woe  sprang  from  inexplicable  and  unac- 
countable fate  with  no  cause  in  her  own  acts;  and 
equally  so  if  it  came  from  the  revolting  one  of 
actual  miscegenation.  It  is  not  so;  there  is  an 
ample  cause  for  her  calamity  in  the  fact  of  her  mar- 
rying with  Othello;  but  it  is  touchingly  palliated 
by  the  non-consummation  and  by  her  transforming 
idealism  of  mind  and  heart. 

This  beautiful  mitigation  enables  Shakespeare  to 
avoid  cold  sentimentalism  and  keep  Desdemona 
pressing  steadily  forward  toward  the  consummation 


PALLlATtOM  ACCOMPLISHED.  ^73 

of  her  union  with  the  Moor  in  a  waj^  that  would  be 
intolerable  in  a  woman  of  less  exquisite  delicacy 
and  spirituality.  She  sees  nothing,  and  up  to  the 
last  moment  feels  nothing,  but  a  sense  of  dedicat- 
ing herself  to  the  loftiest  manliness  and  worth. 
She  does  not  reconcile  herself  to  the  Moor's  com- 
plexion or  to  the  physical  discord ;  she  utterly  and 
absolutely  ignores  them.  ''  My  heart's  subdued 
even  to  the  very  quality  of  my  lord."  Taking 
Othello  just  as  he  was,  to  him  did  she  her  "  soul 
and  fortunes  consecrate."  Desdemona's  spiritual- 
ity and  accompanying  sense  of  devotion  may  be 
extreme  and  unfortunate,  but  they  are  beautiful, 
and  display  the  spirit  of  feminine  consecration  at 
its  highest. 

Thus  we  have  in  Desdemona  the  "  tragic  fault " 
with  fullest  palliation.  Desdemona  is  a  high  type 
of  woman ;  the  feminine  spirit  of  self-devotion  is  an 
overruling  one  with  her,  and  with  it  she  could  do 
anything.  So  modest,  Brabantio  said,  that  her 
motion  blushed  at  herself,  she  yet  boldly  became 
half  the  wooer  and  hinted  to  Othello  that  he  need 
not  hesitate.  Gentle  and  timid,  a  most  dutiful 
daughter,  she  proves  at  once  equal  to  defiance  of 
parental  aufliority,  and  goes  off  in  elopement  and 
secret  marriage.  She  braves  the  open  Senate  in 
defense  of  Othello;  she  demands  to  be  taken  with 
him  to  the  seat  of  war.  And  after  the  reunion  with 
Othello  at  Cyprus,  half-unconsciously  and  yet  with 
the  spirit  that  cannot  stop  without  paying  to  the 
full  the  conjugal  debt  of  devotion,  Desdemona 
presses  on  toward  the  consummation  of  her  mar- 


274  THE  OTHELLO. 

riage.  It  migiit  seem  as  if  Desdemona  had  no 
thought  of  consummating  the  relation  until  driven 
to  it  in  the  effort  to  clear  herself  and  convince  her 
husband  of  her  innocence,  but  that  early  ominous 
phrase  "  his  bed  shall  seem  a  school," — uttered  be- 
fore lago  had  found  a  loophole  or  begun  to  whisper, 
— and  her  declaration  of  saving  the  vessel  for  her 
lord,  show  the  cross  in  the  love  of  the  Moor  and  his 
bride  existing  in  their  own  diverse  intents  and  pri- 
marily a  wrong  of  their  own  making. 

Once  committed  to  wedlock,  Desdemona  keeps 
moving  all  unconsciously,  but  none  the  less  truly, 
toward  the  goal  of  maternity.  The  late-coming 
hope  of  proving  her  innocence  to  Othello  in  vir- 
ginal surrender  only  strengthens  and  confirms  an 
impulse  which  was  asserting  itself  before,  little  as 
the  young  wife  realized  it.  And  at  last,  even  when 
the  voice  of  protesting  physical  nature  spoke  to 
her  in  portents  and  the  wedding  sheets  seemed 
turning  to  shrouds,  she  did  not  hesitate  or  think 
of  averting  the  proposed  consecration.  "  Prithee 
dispatch,"  she  said,  hurrying  her  disrobing;  then 
fell  into  that  wonderful  sleep,  peaceful  as  childhood 
and  coming  of  a  conscience  at  last  appeased. 

Had  there  been  no  lago  and  no  quick  jealousy 
of  the  Moor,  Desdemona  would  have  fallen  a  vic- 
tim to  her  surroundings  and  herself.  Dangerously 
spiritual  and  almost  fanatical  in  the  intensity  of  her 
devotion,  she  could  not  have  endured  a  permanent 
exclusion  from  wifely  consecration  and  maternity; 
and  as  the  abstinent  resolution  of  the  Moor  could 
never  have  been  changed,  Desdemona  would  not 


PALLIATION  ACCOMPLISHED.  275 

have  found  her  ruin  in  the  motherhood  of  mixed 
offspring,  but  must  ultimately  have  abandoned 
Othello,  even  as  she  deserted  her  father  when  he 
stood  in  the  way  of  her  heart-hunger.  The  ex- 
cessive spirituality  of  Desdemona,  and  her  habit  of 
thinking  physical  relations  altogether  lost  in  the 
mental  and  emotional,  together  with  her  impaired 
social  position  and  her  abnormal  spirit  of  self-sac- 
rifice, would  in  time  have  tried  her  virtue  to  the 
limit.  No  wonder  her  fatal  error  brought  her 
father  to  his  grave.  She  was  doomed  from  the 
time  of  her  marriage  one  way  or  another. 

Shakespeare  reaches  the  acme  of  tragic  art  when, 
just  as  the  faults  of  the  noble  pair  are  caused  to 
stand  out  the  more  clearly  as  ones  from  which 
they  cannot  escape,  our  sympathies  are  stirred,  and 
the  glory  of  the  ideal  and  of  unmeasured  devotion 
strengthens  steadily.  In  conscience  and  truth  we 
can  never  deny  that  Desdemona  erred  in  her  mar- 
riage and  invited  calamity  in  some  form,  but  our 
hearts  melt  that  such  loveliness  and  devotion,  so 
beautifully  true  to  the  highest  instincts  of  woman- 
hood, should  be  brought  to  inevitable  and  dread- 
ful wreck  because  generously  mistaken  in  one  re- 
spect. And  so  with  Othello.  His  tragic  fault  can 
never  be  denied — he  attempted  the  impossible  in 
denying  the  needs  of  his  own  nature,  when  his 
"  vaulting  ambition  o'erleaped  itself  to  fall  on  the 
other  side,"  but  his  error  was  surely  the  noblest 
mortal  man  can  commit.  Add  to  these  complica- 
tions the  diverse  intents  and  desires  of  the  pair,  he 
expecting  one  thing,  she  another,  with  the  disillu- 


«76  THE  OTHELLO. 

sionment  of  one  or  both  a  certainty  under  any  cir- 
cumstances, and  we  have  the  sorrow,  not  of  blind 
fate,  but  of  a  mistake  purely  human,  voluntary,  yet 
glorified — pathos  which  most  doth  wring  the  heart. 

Elsewhere  we  consider  some  of  the  mighty  ques- 
tions of  the  enveloping  plots — the  religious  one  of 
the  arrested  marriage  and  the  Christianized  Mo- 
hammedan ;  the  caste  one  of  the  former  slave  rising 
to  high  honor  and  command;  the  sociological  one 
of  the  inhibited  black-white  marriage.  Here  and 
now  we  may  confine  attention  to  the  central,  pri- 
mary, dramatic  development  of  palliation  for  the 
marriage — that  to  which  all  others  are  for  the  pres- 
ent purpose  subordinate. 

Limiting  inquiry  for  the  present  simply  to  the 
field  of  dramaturgic  art,  we  have  here  the  finest  in- 
stance of  Shakespeare's  power  of  transfiguration. 
It  was  for  his  mastery  in  casting  soul-moving  ex- 
tenuation over  the  most  stern  and  undeniable  tragic 
fault  that  Shakespeare's  contemporaries  praised  him 
most.  To  them  his  most  wonderful  power  was  that 
which  could  take  essentially  abhorrent  acts  or  rela- 
tions and  cause  them  to  change  even  before  their 
eyes  until  they  eflfect  an  irresistible  appeal  to  the 
heart.  A  brother  poet  of  his  day  tells  us  Shakes- 
peare did  so  temper  passion  that  "  the  ear  took 
pleasure  in  the  pain  " — a  description  which  we  may 
well  think  prompted  l)y  that  union  of  the  fair  maid 
and  the  blackamoor  chief  which,  seeming  to  prom- 
ise nauseous  ofifense,  is  wondrously  turned  and 
wrought  until  it  appears  at  once  most  beautiful,  de- 
voted, lofty,  yet  fatal. 


PALLIATION  ACCOMPLISHED.  277 

Understood  as  a  tale  of  supersensuous  love,  not 
of  miscegenation,  the  ''  Othello  "  shows  us  an  un- 
deniable tragic  fault  carried  to  the  highest  pitch  of 
heart-melting  extenuation.  Praising  him  beyond 
all  else  for  such  exploits  as  this,  Shakespeare's  asso- 
ciates recognized  his  power  of  transfiguration  as 
something  which  passed  beyond  their  imitation. 
The  palliation  and  purification  in  this  instance  not 
only  go  far  beyond  what  other  dramatists  could 
do,  but  surpass  any  other  effort  of  Shakespeare 
himself.  Aiming  at  higher,  more  difficult  mitiga- 
tion than  ever  before,  he  devotes  the  masculine 
Othello  to  absolute  marital  abstention  through 
lofty  motives,  and  then  causes  the  blooming  and 
delicate  young  bride  to  struggle  steadily  against 
the  current  of  the  platonic  marriage  from  the  first. 
What  can  this  mean  save  the  fullest  possible  justi- 
fication for  Desdemona  in  the  suggestion  of  ab- 
stinent marriage  as  easier  for  exalted  manhood  than 
for  the  noblest  womanhood,  since  the  latter,  once 
committed  to  the  current  of  acceptable  wedlock, 
seeks  inevitably  for  the  consecration  of  that  state, 
and  is  not  to  be  withheld  in  content  unless  the  final 
beatitu'de  of  maternity  is  miraculously  bestowed, 
as  upon  Mary  in  the  miracle  play? 

But  was  it  not  something  more  than  even  the 
highest  change  or  advance  in  his  art  as  a  play- 
wright that  swept  Shakespeare  up  to  a  complete 
palliation  of  a  black-white  marriage  by  means  of 
sensuous  impulse  absolutely  conquered  in  a  virile 
man,  absolutely  sanctified  in  a  super-refined 
woman?     None  of  his  other  men,  none  of  his  other 


/ 


27^  THE  OTHELLO, 

women,  would  serve  such  a  portrayal.  Juliet, 
Imogene,  Portia,  and  Helena  must  all  stand  aside. 
They  were  lovely  women,  but  they  had  at  times  a 
coarseness  of  speech  which  not  even  in  that  age 
could  Shakespeare  permit  in  the  woman  who  was 
to  become  the  bride  of  a  Moor  in  a  union  emulating 
in  human  virtue  the  one  of  the  sacred  drama.  Juliet 
spoke  of  the  physical  relations  of  wedlock;  Helena 
discussed  with  a  man  the  means  of  defending  vir- 
ginity from  assault;  Portia  had  her  joke  about  the 
prince's  mother  being  false  with  a  smith;  poor 
Ophelia's  lips  were  stained.  But  Desdemona  could 
not  even  speak  the  name  of  a  vile  woman.  Why, 
then,  is  she  exalted  so  far  above  Shakespeare's  other 
women  in  delicacy?  Dramatic  art  did  not  require 
that.  The  Elizabethans  would  have  thought  it 
enough  to  palliate  her  fault  by  showing  purity  of 
love  and  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  as  the  motives 
prompting  her;  and  she  might  have  spoken  such 
language  as  the  other  women  and  been  spoken  to 
at  times  in  terms  of  like  coarseness.  But  no;  des- 
perate as  is  the  tragic  fault  of  Desdemona,  the  ex- 
tenuation with  her  is  carried  far  higher  than  for  any 
other  heroine:  mitigation  does  not  stop  until  we 
are  brought  to  feel  what  Mrs.  Jameson  terms  the 
"  angelic  refinement  "  of  the  character. 

Fully  as  unusual  is  the  palliation  wrought  for  the 
Moor.  But  the  taste  of  Elizabethan  playgoers 
did  not  demand  this  upward  flight  of  the 
"  Othello."  It  was  best  suited  with  denial  pre- 
served behind  a  locked  door  and  desire  clamor- 
ing   for    admission;    or    with    a    refusal    coming 


PALLIATION  ACCOMPLISHED.  279 

from  a  husband,  but  inspired  by  preference 
for  another  —  anything  but  a  manly  chaste- 
ness.  Self-denied  husbands  are  rare  in  the  Eliza- 
bethan drama,  and  almost  always  show  weak- 
ness; the  atmosphere  of  the  early  playhouse  is  on 
them  all.  It  is  seldom  we  encounter  creatures 
like  those  in  Fletcher^s  "  Faithful  Shepherdess " 
who  loved  their  loves  until  repelled  by  hints  of 
female  desire;  and  when  we  do,  they  appear  usually 
as  pastoral  beings  dwelling  appropriately  in  en- 
chanted groves  rather  than  personages  in  real  life. 
The  heroes  of  the  Elizabethan  stage  were  generally 
of  another  stamp:  strong,  determined,  but  waver- 
ing before  appetite.  Amintor,  forced  to  give  up 
his  true  love  and  wed  another,  nevertheless  sought 
that  other  at  the  first  opportunity.  Virolet  was 
nobler,  refusing  his  second  wife  in  devotion  to  the 
first,  who  was  yet  living  and  unwillingly  divorced; 
but  his  abstinence  is  not  glorious  like  Othello's,  fot 
he  was  still  subject  to  wrong  impulses.  There  was 
no  virtue,  no  high  control,  in  Bertram's  denial  of 
his  devoted  bride;  none  in  the  exclusion  which 
Evanthe  and  Ordella  had  to  suffer  from  their  new- 
found husbands. 

In  many  other  instances  like  those  cited  the  ab- 
stention was  either  compulsory  or  was  a  display  of 
ill-will  toward  wives  by  men  quick  enough  to  ap- 
proach other  women.  It  was  a  spell  of  necromancy 
that  withheld  Valerio;  a  stupefying  drug  that 
paralyzed  the  functions  of  Thierry.  Even  the 
noble  Albert,  who  "  sanctimoniously  observed " 
Aminta's  privacy  when  they  were  alone  together  on 


aSo  THE  OTHELLO. 

an  island,  nevertheless  made  advances  later  which 
should  never  precede  formal  marriage.  The 
Knight  of  Malta,  with  all  his  devotion  to  Oriana, 
steps  aside  in  a  weak  moment  to  whisper  to  her 
attendant.  In  the  "  Enforced  Marriage  "  it  appears 
at  last  Scarborough  actually  consummated  his 
union  with  Katherine,  unwilling  though  it  was,  and 
that  too  while  declaring  he  had  no  wife  in  truth,  but 
was  finely  and  fully  devoted  to  the  dead  Clare. 

Feminine  renunciation  is  sometimes  truer,  not 
always.  The  sentiments  of  Oriana  were  exalted 
when  she  appealed  to  her  unwed  lover  to  preserve 
their  spiritual  affection  forever  in  its  purity,  but 
alas !  she  was  then  expecting  to  continue  in  the  full 
life  of  marriage  with  a  man  whom  she  did  not  love. 
Virolet  is,  in  many  ways,  the  highest  type  of  manly 
chasteness  to  be  found  in  the  Elizabethan  drama 
outside  Shakespeare.  Compelled  by  overwhelm- 
ing power  of  circumstances  to  divorce  his  beloved 
wife  and  wed  Martia  against  his  will,  he  refuses  to 
the  latter  a  consummation  of  the  marriage,  and 
holds  himself  sacred  to  his  first  love.  Still,  his 
virtue  is  not  that  of  Othello.  In  the  last  analysis 
we  find  it  is  only  the  old  Elizabethan  dramatic 
motive  which  causes  a  husband  to  deny  a  wife 
through  preference  for  another.  Virolet  is  indeed 
faithful  to  Juliana,  and  superior  to  the  baser  pas- 
sion to  a  laudable  extent,  but  he  proves  himself 
false  to  honor  and  subject  to  desire  when  he  ap- 
proaches his  former  wife  without  "  the  seal  o*  th' 
church,"  and  has  to  be  repelled  by  her. 

Those  pastoral  beings,  Perigot  and  Daphnis,  did 


PALLIATION  ACCOMPLISHED.  2%\ 

indeed  turn  to  reproach  and  disgust  when  their 
shepherdess  loves  hinted  of  desire,  but  they  have 
httle  appearance  of  real  men,  and  their  reserve  is 
as  unreal  and  fantastic  as  that  of  Victor  Hugo's 
Marius,  who  felt  outraged  that  Cosette's  skirt 
should  be  raised  so  high  as  to  disclose  her  sacred 
ankles.  Generally  in  the  EHzabethan  drama  the 
reserve  of  men  is  not  manly,  but  stands  for  im- 
maturity, preference  for  another,  stupefying  drinks, 
foul  spells,  or  the  like.  It  is  not  intended  to  be 
permanent  through  life's  prime,  in  daily  marital 
association  with  a  loved  and  loving  one;  absolutely 
faithful,  unswerving,  and  with  denial  imposed  by 
honor  alone.  That  was  left  for  Shakespeare,  and 
when  he  accomplished  it  others  dared  not  even  imi- 
tate the  bold  exploit. 

To  dally  with  and  vex  in  the  Elizabethan  way 
nuptials  of  black  and  white  would  have  been  dis- 
gusting; and  in  the  height  of  his  art  Shakespeare 
perceived  that  only  the  most  complete  and  absolute 
palliation  could  suffice  in  such  a  case — nothing 
much  less  than  the  semi-sacred  redemption  of  the 
marriage  of  Joseph  and  Mary  in  the  old  miracle 
play  of  his  youth. 

But  what  of  the  nuptial  celebration?  If  Shakes- 
peare had  intended  merely  to  revive  the  fantastic, 
superangelical  loves  of  knights  of  chivalry  like  Per- 
ceval and  Gala'had,  and  to  show  that  of  Desdemona 
and  Othello  to  have  only  the  mitigation  of  cold 
sentimentality,  he  would  have  drawn  the  hero  and 
lady  both  in  reserve,  and  never  have  permitted  the 
bridal  celebration  with  its  warm  and  inconsistent 


282  THE   OTHELLO, 

suggestion.  It  is  the  nuptial  occasion  which,  al- 
though arrested,  casts  out  chill  platonics,  relieves 
the  monk-like  renunciation  of  Othello  by  throwing 
him  into  the  glow  of  .hymeneal  intimations,  and 
above  all  renders  Desdemona  thoroughly  human, 
womanly,  bride-like.  Cold  sentimentalism,  such  as 
would  have  ruined  the  picture  in  other  hands,  is 
swept  away.  The  conception  of  a  love  reciprocal 
but  taking  one  direction  with  the  man  and  the  other 
with  the  woman,  is  startling,  powerful,  profoundly 
true  and  essential  to  warm,  moving  efifect.  Caus- 
ing the  bride  to  be  the  one  who  all  unconsciously 
but  steadily  works  against  the  preservation  of  pla- 
tonic  relations,  Shakespeare  does  not  hesitate  before 
a  difficulty  that  would  have  appalled  any  other 
dramatist,  but  proceeds  at  once  to  assign  this  same 
woman  one  of  the  loftiest  parts  ever  played  by  one 
of  her  sex;  compelling  us  to  perceive  only  a  desire 
for  wifely  consecration  and  the  sanctification  of  love 
as  the  motives  which  prompted  her  to  see  the  color 
in  the  mind  and  moved  her  steadily  toward  the 
consummation  of  the  marriage.  Only  Shakespeare 
could  accomplish  such  difficult  but  transcendently 
beautiful  palliation.* 

Incredible  as  it  may  seem,  the  critics  have  stood 
in    the   presence    of   the    great    difficulty    in    the 

♦Exploiting  various  phases  of  love,  Elizabethan  drama- 
tists dealt  at  times  with  strangely  ardent  affection  between 
men.  They  could  conceive,  too,  of  men  and  women  as 
destitute  of  the  baser  passion.  The  one  thing  beyond  all 
but  Shakespeare  was  such  sanctification  of  it  as  in  Othello 
and  Desdemona. 


PALLIA  TIOiV  A  CCOMPLISHED.  283 

"  Othello "  without  so  much  as  considering 
what  light  might  be  obtained  from  the  old 
mystery  or  miracle  play  of  Shakespeare's  youth, 
with  its  sooty  faces  of  the  ''  black  souls "  and 
its  platonic  marriage  of  Mary  and  Joseph. 
Even  more  singular  is  the  lack  of  compara- 
tive study  of  '*  Lust's  Dominion  "  or  the  **  Span- 
ish Moor's  Tragedy,"  which  preceded  Shakes- 
peare's work  five  years  on  the  Elizabethan  stage, 
and  presented  the  first  effort  to  invest  a  mar- 
riage of  black  and  white  with  poetic  interest.  I 
will  not  stop  to  consider  whether  that  play  is  partly 
Marlowe's  or  not.  For  the  present  purpose  it  is 
sufficient  to  know  that  it  was  produced  at  least  five 
years  before  the  "  Othello,"  and  attained  consider- 
able popularity.  Shakespeare's  familiarity  with  it 
is  evident.  He  did  not  follow  it  in  plot  or  charac- 
terization, marvelously  improving  upon  both;  but 
throughout  the  "  Othello  "  we  find  repetitions  or 
paraphrases  of  the  language  of  the  older  play 
which  snow  how  well  Shakespeare  knew  it.  Thus 
the  elder  Moor  was  termed  "  a  devil  "  and  "  a  slave 
of  Barbara,"  while  Othello  is  likewise  maligned  by 
lago  as  "the  devil"  and  "a  Barbary  horse"; 
Phillip  in  the  first  piece  says  "  I'll  play  the  devil," 
while  lago  asks  ''  what's  he  then  that  says  I  play  the 
villain? "  and  immediately  proves  his  villainy  by 
disclosing  his  slander  of  Desdemona  "  that  she  re- 
peals him,"  which  is  an  echo  of  the  king's  declara- 
tion, "  'Twas  we  that  repeal'd  him.'*  Othello  tells 
lago  that  beyond  the  slander  of  Desdemona  *'  noth- 
ing canst  thou  to  damnation  add,"  while  in  the 


284  THE   OTHELLO. 

older  play  all  the  characters  on  the  stage  cry  out 
against  an  act  as  "  worse  than  damnation " — a 
difference  and  a  distinction,  and  yet  with  something 
parallel.  Maria  says  "  I  am  as  free  from  murder 
as  thyself/*  while  Bianca  says  she  is  "  as  honest  as 
you  that  thus  abuse  me."  Eleazer  thinks  men 
sometimes  "  lay  their  souls  to  the  stake,"  while 
Emilia  says  she  dares  "  lay  down  my  soul  at  stake." 
Maria  promised  that  **  Such  love  as  I  dare  yield  I'll 
not  deny,"  and  Desdemona  protested  she  had  not 
loved  Cassio  save  with  "  such  general  warranty  of 
heaven  as  I  might  love."     Eleazer  says  that 

"  Sin  shines  clear 
When  her  black  face  religion's  mask  doth  wear/* 

while  lago  confesses  in  soliloquy  that 

"  When  devils  will  the  blackest  sins  put  on 
They  do  suggest  at  first  with  heavenly  shows." 

These  resemblances  and  repetitions  are  signifi- 
cant as  showing  how  familiar  the  older  play  must 
have  been  to  Shakespeare.  Convinced  that  he 
knew  it  well,  we  may  better  appreciate  the  vast  im- 
provement he  introduced  in  picturing  an  intermar- 
riage and  investing  it  with  the  extenuation  of  poetic 
beauty.  The  older  play  was  the  pioneer  eflfort  in 
the  direction  of  beautifying  the  love  of  a  refined 
white  woman  for  a  black  man,  but  its  measure  of 
success  was  scanty  and  feeble  compared  with  that 
of  Shakespeare.  Where  was  his  improvement? 
It  abounds  throughout,  but  is  especially  strong  in 
the  beautiful  extenuation  of  the  fault  of  the  pair  in 
entering  an  unnatural  marriage. 


PALLIATION  ACCOMPLISHED,  285 

Othello  is  strikingly  like  Eleazer  in  being  a  great, 
an  invincible  warrior.  That  conception  of  a  Moor 
was  already  familiar  to  the  Elizabethan  stage,  and 
Shakespeare  followed  it  faithfully.  Both  Moors 
are  black  in  the  face  and  powerful  of  arm, — fearful 
opponents  to  meet  in  the  field, — but  there  all  re- 
semblance ceases.  Because  of  his  value  to  the 
state  in  bearing  arms  against  the  Turks,  Eleazer  has 
to  be  rewarded,  honored,  courted;  but  aside  from 
his  bravery  he  is  altogether  repulsive — libidinous, 
treacherous,  bloodthirsty.  As  Dodsley  says,  "  The 
philanthropy  of  our  ancestors  was  not  shocked  at 
any  representation  of  an  African  or  an  Israelite." 
Eleazer  was  painted  right  to  the  Elizabethan  con- 
ception of  Moors  as  powerful  warriors,  but  almost 
as  dangerous  to  society  in  peace  as  to  their  enemies 
in  war.  There  is  never  a  moment  when  we  feel 
sympathy  for  Eleazer;  and,  so  far  as  he  is  concerned, 
the  intermarriage  is  left  without  a  touch  of  redeem- 
ing beauty.  The  noble  conception  of  mitigating 
the  marriage  by  exalting  the  character  and  con- 
duct of  the  blackamoor  husband  was  left  to  Shakes- 
peare; the  older  Moor  was  in  every  respect  abom- 
inable. 

It  is  not  until  we  come  to  the  blackamoor's  wife, 
Maria,  that  we  see  the  aim  of  Shakespeare's  prede- 
cessors to  extenuate  the  marriage  of  amalgamation ; 
and  we  find  their  efforts  directed  to  two  points:  (i) 
to  accentuate  her  devotion  to  her  black  lord  as  that 
of  a  delicate  and  unselfish  spirit;  and  (2)  to  divert 
Eleazer's  ardors  from  her  to  another  woman,  thus 
drawing  the  mind  of  the  spectator  away  from  any- 


286  THE  OTHELLO. 

thing  suggestive  of  conjugal  intimacy.  Eleazer 
never  offers  his  wife  a  caress,  a  kiss,  or  an  endear- 
ing word.  We  know  not  how  long  they  have  been 
married,  but  there  is  an  absolute  absence  of  any 
hymeneal  or  nuptial  touches.  There  is  no  sugges- 
tion of  offspring.  Himself  false  to  wedlock  and  to 
all  other  obligations  of  conscience,  Eleazer's  jeal- 
ousy, so  far  as  he  was  capable  of  any  such  feeling, 
was  thoroughly  base,  ungrateful,  despicable,  with- 
out a  shadow  of  excuse — that  of  a  man  who  really 
cared  nothing  for  his  wife  or  for  her  honor.  The 
playwrights,  in  their  struggle  to  save  the  delicacy 
of  Maria,  have  to  keep  the  blackamoor  in  such 
aloofness  that  he  hardly  seems  to  be  an  actual  hus- 
band, although  a  platonic  marriage  is  out  of  the 
question  with  him,  and  we  must  regard  the  union 
as  one  of  consummation.  And  just  there  is  the 
indelible  stain  on  Maria.  Gracious  and  devoted  as 
she  is,  we  can  never  think  her  nature  is  really  as 
delicate  as  her  language  unless  by  assuming  a  cer- 
tain weakness  of  intellect.  There  is  no  reason  why 
she  should  have  married  the  Moor — no  mitigation 
or  palliation  of  the  marriage.  We  cannot  elevate 
the  relation  to  the  mental  or  emotional,  for  Eleazer 
is  as  unfit  to  mate  with  her  there  as  he  is  in  physical 
relations.  Hence,  despite  all  the  efforts  of  the 
playwrights  to  invest  the  marriage  with  extenua- 
tion by  beautifying  the  character  and  motives  of 
Maria,  there  is  a  painful  failure  because  the  Moor 
was  wholly  unworthy;  and  her  marital  relations 
with  the  lecherous  savage  are  sickening  and  dis- 
gusting.    It   is   a   decided   relief  when   the  play- 


PALLIATION  ACCOMPLtSHBD.  287 

Wrights  end  the  marriage  early  in  the  play  by  send- 
ing Maria  to  a  death  that  we  cannot  much  regret. 

Maria's  devotion  is  that  of  sentimental  or  feeble- 
minded infatuation  rather  than  true  love.  Or  if 
we  think  such  a  characterization  too  severe  for  one 
who  was  certainly  most  unselfish  and  devoted,  we 
cannot  but  regard  her  affection  for  the  blackamoor 
as  miserable  and  painful.  In  real  life  we  are  some- 
times distressed  to  see  the  utmost  of  womanly  de- 
votion fastened  upon  wretched  sots  or  foul  crimi- 
nals, but  that  is  not  the  material  of  poetic  or  tragic 
art.  There  is  a  failure  to  touch  the  chord  of  fel- 
low-feeling. We  are  not  disposed  to  think  of  our- 
selves as  linked  in  marriage  with  the  beastly  and  the 
foul.  So  it  must  be  said  of  this  first  effort  to  por- 
tray a  black-white  marriage  in  English  drama,  de- 
spite all  the  beautiful  lines  in  the  character  of 
Maria,  that  the  final  impression  is  not  one  of  pite- 
ous sympathy  and  fellow-feeling  suitably  evoked, 
but  of  pain  and  disgust  that  a  refined  and  delicate 
woman  of  the  white  race  should  be  joined  in  mar- 
riage with  a  brutal,  lustful,  and  abhorrent  Moor. 

Content  to  echo  phrases  and  expressions  from  the 
earlier  play  as  if  to  compliment  its  authors,  Shakes- 
peare marvelously  recreated  the  marital  conditions 
of  black  and  white  by  ennobling  Othello  in 
character  and  conduct  and  rendering  the  marriage 
one  that  exalts  him  while  it  saves  his  beautiful 
bride,  and  is  extenuated  in  beauty  until  it  com- 
mands our  uttermost  sense  of  sympathy. 

To  apprehend  the  great  redeeming  truth  of  the 
"  Othello,"  we  must  raise  our  eyes  to  the  eleva- 


288  THE   OTHELLO. 

tion  of  the  master  playwright's  refined  art.  It  is  we 
who,  groveling  here  below,  conceive  this  tale  to  be 
one  of  forbidding  grossness.  Shakespeare's  asso- 
ciates and  contemporaries  could  have  had  no 
thought  of  such  a  thing.  Above  all  else  they 
praised  him  for  the  manner  in  which  he  cast  witch- 
ery and  pathos  over  the  most  difficult  relations.  A 
brother  poet  of  his  own  day  sang  the  praise  of 
Shakespeare  that  he  did  delight  to  move 

"  A  chilling  pity,  then  a  rigorous  love; 
To  strike  up  and  stroke  down  both  joy  and  ire; 
To  steer  th'  affections;  and  by  heavenly  fire 
Mold  us  anew." 

Just  such  is  his  work  in  the  "  Othello,"  carrying 
the  black-white  love  up  and  down,  and  at  last 
illumining  it  with  heavenly  fire  to  mold  us  anew. 

To  perceive  the  sunburst  of  supersensuous  love 
rising  upon  sinking,  fading  amalgamation,  we 
must  get  back  to  the  view  and  appreciation  of  the 
brother  poet  of  Shakespeare's  own  time,  who,  in  the 
same  tribute  already  quoted,  declared  that  when 
"  two  contraries  "  flamed  up  in  tragic  poetry,  as  of 
beauty  where  we  expected  offense — 

*•  Two  different  passions  from  the  rapt  soul  rise, 
Say.  (who  alone  effect  such  wonders  could) 
Rare  Shakespeare  to  the  life  thou  dost  behold." 

And  in  all  the  cases  where  he  wrought  such  won- 
ders and  transformed  the  seemingly  hideous  into 
glory,  there  is  none  to  equal  the  "  Othello  "  when 
we  get  away  from  wrong  commentary  and  behold 
it  aright. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

CULMINATION    OF    THE    WEDDING    PLOT. 

The  incident  of  Desdemona's  disrobing  and  call 
for  her  wedding  sheets,  in  the  fourth  act,  is  apt  to 
strike  readers  of  the  present  time  as  needlessly  sug- 
gestive, but  it  would  not  displease  even  feminine 
delicacy  if  studied  long  enough  to  be  seen  in  its 
true  setting  and  softly  veiled  in  the  nuptial  cus- 
toms and  poetry  of  the  EHzabethans.  If  we  can  but 
put  away  a  false  feeling  of  coarseness  and  view  the 
incident  truly,  it  will  prove  an  invaluable  illustration 
of  Shakespeare's  art,  especially  when  compared  with 
the  efforts  of  other  Elizabethan  poets  to  draw  near 
the  nuptial  chamber,  and  it  will  be  found  also  to 
bear  with  convincing  force  on  the  wedding  plot  of 
the  play  and  to  reveal  Shakespeare  himself  in  a  new 
light.  A  consideration  of  the  incident  is  the  more 
important  as  it  has  been  sadly  misconceived,  both 
in  respect  to  its  beauty  and  its  significance,  by  the 
only  writers  who  have  made  it  the  subject  of  spe- 
cial remark — Wilson  and  Clarke.  They  say  that 
in  her  overwhelming  sorrow  Desdemona  called  for 
her  wedding  sheets  to  be  brought  forth  again  as  re- 
minders of  the  happier  days  of  her  early  married 
life,  forgetting,  as  her  husband  was  indubitably 
black,  that  this  would  stain  her  delicacy  and  rep- 


290  THE    OTHELLO. 

resent  her  as  glorying  in  and  preserving  memorials 
of  a  wrong  to  her  race  and  her  sex.  But  even 
those  who  find  it  comforting  to  believe  Othello  so 
nearly  white  as  to  be  an  inoffensive  husband  for  the 
fair  Venetian,  cannot  regard  the  wedding  sheets  as 
produced  for  a  renewed  use  without  missing  a 
stroke  of  art  which  no  lover  of  Shakespeare  should 
be  willing  to  pass  unseen. 

The  call  for  the  wedding  sheets,  like  that  for  her 
"  nightly  wearing,"  indicates  the  preparation  of  the 
nuptial  chamber  to  welcome  Othello;  but  the  order 
for  the  spreading  of  the  bed,  and  Emilia's  dismissal 
for  the  night,  are  more  specific,  and  show  it  is  the 
first  coming  of  the  Moor  that  is  expected.  That  is 
why  Emilia  is  so  reluctant  to  proceed  with  the 
preparations,  being  unwilling  to  have  Desdemona 
given  fully  to  the  blackamoor.  "Dismiss  me!" 
"Here's  a  change  indeed!"  Just  as  the  waiting- 
woman's  surprise  at  her  dismissal  shows  a  new  turn 
of  affairs,  so  did  the  call  for  the  wedding  sheets  in- 
dicate the  approach  of  what  was  to  Emilia  a  sur- 
prising change  in  the  relations  of  Desdemona  and 
the  Moor.  This  was  not,  as  the  commentators 
have  strangely  supposed,  a  tenth  or  a  fifth  or  even 
a  second  time  that  Desdemona  had  called  for  her 
wedding  sheets  and  dismissed  Emilia  for  the  night. 
It  was  the  first.  And  yet  it  was  the  night  of  the 
young  wife's  death.  Pictures  of  bridal  disrobing 
and  preparation  on  the  marriage  night  were  com- 
mon in  nuptial  poetry  and  on  the  stage  in  Shakes- 
peare's day;  but  the  belated  call  for  the  wedding 
sheets  in  this  instance  was  a  peculiar  manifestation 


CULMINATION  OF  THE   WEDDING  PLOT.      291 

of  dramaturgic  art.  Wedding  sheets  were  dis- 
tinct emblems  of  the  joyous  nuptial  occasion,  but 
they  are  produced  now  after  the  early  happiness  of 
the  marriage  is  gone,  Othello's  wrong  suspicion 
having  reached  the  last  degree  of  misery,  and  Des- 
demona's  cup  of  sorrow  overflowing.  What  a  time 
to  produce  wedding  sheets  as  memorials!  If  the 
sheets  had  post-nuptial  significance  (as  they  did 
not  in  Shakespeare's  time),  and  were  saved  as  me- 
morials, the  sight  of  them  could  only  infuriate 
Othello  all  the  more,  since  in  that  event  they  must 
be  to  him  fresh  reminders  of  wifely  honor  basely 
lost.  Desdemona  did  many  unhappy  things,  but 
she  could  never  have  committed  so  gross  a  blunder 
as  that.  Desdemona's  inspiration  was  wholly  dif- 
ferent— that  of  offering  to  Othello  a  virginal  sacri- 
fice which  should  prove  absolutely  her  innocence. 
Such  was  the  significance  of  wedding  sheets,  and 
the  call  for  them  at  this  late  time  in  the  marriage, 
and  in  the  hour  of  sorrow,  not  of  nuptial  joy,  is  a 
moving  stroke  of  Shakespearean  art  long  lost  to  the 
world. 

If  students  will  recur  to  the  long-forgotten 
nuptial  poetry  and  bridal  customs  of  Shakespeare's 
day,  noting  how  the  sheets  put  upon  the  bridal 
couch  were  thought  to  give  the  young  husband  in- 
dubitable assurance  on  the  marriage  night,  and 
attest  conclusively  the  virtue  in  which  the  new 
family  took  its  start,  they  cannot  fail  to  gain  a 
higher  appreciation  of  our  great  playwright's  art.* 

*  This  expectation  is  disclosed  in  Massinger's  "  Bond- 


292  THE   OTHELLO. 

In  the  old  nuptial  customs  of  the  Elizabethans 
the  bride  was  often  sewed  in  the  wedding  sheets, 
and  it  was  the  duty  of  the  bridegroom  to  rend  them 
to  tatters  in  his  approach ;  but  even  if  not  destroyed 
in  this  way,  they  were  regarded  like  the  breaking  of 
the  bride's  crystal  bowl,  or  the  loosing  of  the 
maiden  zone,  as  significant  on  only  one  occasion 
in  a  woman's  life.  A  widow,  remarrying,  could  not 
use  thetti.  They  attested  the  loss  of  maidenhood; 
and  when  that  was  done,  if  not  actually  destroyed, 
they  were  reduced  to  mere  linen  without  symbolic 
meaning  or  significance,  and  were  never  memorials. 

Not  until  this  peculiar  meaning  of  these  emblems, 
as  pertaining  to  one  occasion  and  one  event,  is 
properly  understood,  can  we  appreciate  the  art  of 
Shakespeare  in  causing  the  delayed  call  for  them  to 
give  indirect,  delicate,  but  convincing  proof  of  Des- 
demona's  virginal  state  being  yet  preserved  in  mar- 
riage. Nothing  can  be  more  instructive  in  this  way 
than  a  comparison  of  Desdemona's  disrobing  with 
like  scenes  of  bridal  preparation  by  Shakespeare's 
contemporaries.  One  will  have  a  long  search  in 
the  Elizabethan  drama  to  find  a  virginal  state  sug- 
gested by  a  mere  scene  of  undressing  and  the 
spreading  of  wedding  sheets  without  the  accom- 

man,"  where  Cleora  is  urged  to  free  herself  from  aspersions 
of  her  virtue. 

"  To  which  there  is  no  easier  way  than  by 
Vouchsafing  him  your  favor." 
But  with  Desdemona  there  is  no  direct  allusion  to  her 
expectation  ;  all  is  implied  in  the  call  for  the  wedding 
sheets. 


CULMINATION  OF  THE   WEDDING  PLOT.      293 

paniment  of  broad  insinuation  and  banter.  Usually 
the  bride  was  chaffed  unmercifully  by  her  attend- 
ants during  the  undressing,  while  the  admonitions 
to  the  bridegroom  and  his  behaviors  were  some- 
times genuinely  humorous,  often  decidedly  broad, 
and  occasionally  grossly  indelicate.  Nothing  of 
the  sort  is  permitted  to  approach  Desdemona.  We 
can  never  appreciate  the  circumstances  of  pity  and 
purification  which  the  Elizabethans  saw  in  Desde- 
mona's  disrobing  until  we  learn  what  they  usually 
expected  and  perceived  in  such  scenes.  Passing 
without  further  remark  the  incredible  coarseness  of 
the  old  miracle  play,  with  its  attestation  of  a  vir- 
ginity preserved  in  marriage,  we  may  refer  the 
reader  who  desires  to  inquire  further  into  the  Eliza- 
bethan idea  to  the  passing  of  maidenhood  in  the 
"  Maid's  Tragedy  "  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  to 
Hey  wood's  dealing  with  Julia;  or,  if  he  seek  evi- 
dence from  real  life,  to  the  proceedings  at  the  di- 
vorce of  the  Countess  of  Essex,  whose  marriage 
was  annulled  because  never  consummated.  These 
proofs  are  certainly  clear  enough  for  anyone,  but 
we  might  well  be  apprised  of  the  fact,  as  lago  ad- 
vised Roderigo  to  dispose  of  himself,  in  **  a  more 
delicate  way." 

As  Burke  says,  distinctness  of  imagery  or 
method  may  be  injurious  to  art.  ^But  it  was 
something  more  than  an  improvement  in  ar- 
tistic method  for  Shakespeare,  desiring  to  fix 
the  impression  of  Desdemona^s  virginity  pre- 
served in  marriage,  to  have  no  assertions  or 
questions  of  the  fact,  no  discussions,  no  hopes, 


294  THE   OTHELLO. 

fears,  or  promises  declared  to  depend  upon  a  dem- 
onstration of  it,  but  to  leave  them  all  to  be  im- 
plied from  the  simple,  unexplained  order  of  the 
young  wife  to  her  maid  to  spread  the  wedding 
sheets  upon  her  couch.  So  singularly  careful  is 
Shakespeare  to  keep  Desdemona  sacred  and  apart 
from  the  coarseness  of  allusion  that  played  around 
his  other  women,  that  the  wedding  sheets  are  not 
even  mentioned  until  they  have  been  invested  with 
a  softening  and  saddening  meaning  which  greatly 
overclouds  the  primary  one.  The  very  disrobing 
scene,  usually  broad  and  suggestive,  is  changed  into 
one  of  holy  devotion  and  moving  pathos. 

Knowing  Othello  will  not  respond  to  her  invita- 
tion, but  perceiving  that  if  he  would  the  young 
wife's  innocence  could  be  demonstrated  and  lago 
exposed,  Desdemona's  call  for  the  wedding  sheets 
does  not  raise  the  thought  of  marital  approaches, 
but  one  of  pity,  sympathy,  half-smothered  hope. 
We  think  now  of  anything  else  than  the  once-hated 
consummation — of  the  wondrous  devotion  of  Des- 
demona; of  that  unbreakable  chasteness  of  the 
Moor,  which  we  now  almost  wish  to  break,  and  of 
such  beauteous  love  involved  in  such  woe.  To 
playgoers  accustomed  to  the  significance  of  the 
wedding  sheets,  on  the  one  occasion  for  which  they 
were  prepared  and  on  which  they  could  speak,  there 
was  no  danger  of  misapprehension.  In  the  days  of 
nuptial  poetry  no  one  having  any  appreciation  of 
the  hymenean  could  possibly  think  Desdemona  was 
spreading  her  wedding  sheets  long  after  her  mai- 
denhood had  been  lost,  any  more  than  that  the 


CULMmATlON-  OP  THE  WEDDING  PLOT.     295 

drinking  of  the  posset,  breaking  the  bridal  bowl,  or 
sewing  the  bride  in  the  sheets  could  be  repeated 
after  the  nuptial  night  was  passed. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  how  the  other  playwrights 
of  the  time  would  have  pictured  Desdemona's  state 
to  their  audiences.  If  the  marriage  had  been  con- 
summated, they  would  have  had  her  upbraid  Othello 
for  lack  of  confidence  when  he  had  so  recently 
received  proofs  of  innocence  and  wifely  devotion. 
So,  too,  would  he  have  had  moments  of  reassur- 
ance based  on  such  grounds.  If,  on  the  contrary, 
they  intended  the  union  to  be  yet  unconsummate, 
they  would  have  caused  Desdemona  to  speak  con- 
fidently of  the  vindication  she  could  accomplish  in 
proving  her  innocence  to  Othello;  and  the  Moor 
would  certainly  have  been  found  looking  forward 
to  the  infallible  test.  But  not  a  word  of  the  sort 
is  spoken  by  either  Othello  or  Desdemona.  All  is 
implied,  and  implied  in  the  call  for  the  wedding 
sheets,  and  that  incident  is  so  clouded  with  pathos 
that  not  a  trace  of  indelicacy  is  suggested  by  it. 

Shakespeare's  purpose  was  to  indicate  Desde- 
mona's retained  maidenhood,  and  as  she  had  been 
some  time  married  in  form,  supposition  would 
naturally  run  toward  consummation  and  make  the 
case  one  requiring  plain,  positive  statement.  How, 
then,  could  he  escape  the  coarseness  distinguishing 
nuptial  scenes  where  the  necessity  for  plain  speak- 
ing was  nothing  like  as  strong?  Simply  by  the 
incident  of  the  wedding  sheets.  To  the  Eliza- 
bethan mind  the  production  of  the  wedding  sheets 
could  suggest  only  a  preserved  virginity.     At  any 


296  THE   OTHELLO. 

rate,  they  "had  to  catch  the  truth  from  that  intima- 
tion or  go  uninformed.  Nothing  ruder  than  veiled 
suggestion  is  permitted  to  come  near  Desdemona. 
Approaching  a  demonstration  which  seems  to  re- 
quire iblunt  and  coarse  declaration,  Shakespeare 
used  only  delicate,  veiled  intimation,  and  yet  could 
not  have  been  misunderstood,  save  by  thick  skulls, 
in  the  days  when  nuptial  nights  had  special  cele- 
bration and  bedding  ballads  were  sung. 

Elizabethan  playgoers  saw  at  once  a  significant 
disorder  or  disarrangement  in  the  hymeneal  inci- 
dents of  the  "  Othello."  The  nuptial  celebration 
announced  and  started  in  the  second  act  was  cut 
short  or  deflected  without  any  bridal  disrobing  or 
spreading  of  the  wedding  sheets.  Nor  was  there 
anything  to  stand  as  a  substitute  for  such  incidents. 
There  was  no  drinking  of  the  posset,  no  flinging 
the  stocking,  no  sewing  of  the  bride  in  the  sheets, 
not  even  a  mention  of  wedding  sheets,  but  sug- 
gestions of  absence  and  abstinence  on  the  part  of 
the  Moor.  The  Elizabethan  spectator,  even  if  he 
did  not  catch  the  doubt  in  Othello's  speecli  at  the 
bridal-chamber  door,  knew  on  the  instant  the  nup- 
tial events  were  disordered  and  thrown  out  of  se- 
quence; and  the  culminating  proof  for  all  came 
near  the  close  of  the  drama,  when  spectators  were 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  delayed  bridal  dis- 
robing and  the  spreading  of  the  wedding  sheets, 
although  Desdemona  had  been  then  some  time 
married.  The  intelligent  playgoer  saw  at  once 
crowning  proof  of  what  he  had  suspected  all  along 
— ^that  Desdemona  was  yet  a  maiden,  that  her  jnar- 


CULMINATION  OF  THE   WEDDING  PLOT.      297 

riage  had  not  been  consummated.  And  the  chief 
inspiration  in  bringing  out  the  wedding  sheets  at 
last  is  to  offer  Othello  proof  \Vhich  shall  attest, 
not  only  wifely  devotion,  but  maiden  innocence, 
clear  away  false  suspicion,  and  relieve  his  anguish 
of  mind. 

This  singular  variation  in  the  spirit  and  aim  of 
hymeneal  custom  and  poetry  must  have  fascinated 
the  interest  oi  the  Elizabethans,  but  to  us  it  is  even 
more  absorbing  to  notice  the  delicacy  of  the  de- 
lineation. The  purpose  is  precisely  that  sought  so 
rudely  by  other  dramatists,  namely,  the  disclosure 
of  the  yet  virginal  state  of  the  young  wife.  But  no 
one  is  suffered  to  mention  it.  The  waiting  woman 
is  not  permitted  to  speak  of  it  even  in  the  license 
of  the  disrobing  scene,  where  chaff  and  banter  were 
so  common,  and  Desdemona  is  happily  represented 
as  not  comprehending  the  vague  general  coarse- 
ness she  hears  on  this  occasion  from  Emilia,  or 
such  as  she  heard  on  a  previous  one  from  lago. 
Any  other  Elizabethan  dramatist  would  have  had 
Desdemona  or  her  maid  speak  of  the  uses  of  the 
wedding  sheets,  the  hopes  attached  to  them  in  this 
instance,  and  given  explanation  why  they  were  pro- 
duced so  late.  But  Shakespeare  will  not  permit  in- 
delicate assertion  or  allusion  to  touch  or  play 
around  Desdemona.  All  has  to  be  implied  from 
the  mere  order  to  put  the  sheets  upon  the  bed. 
The  customary  coarseness  is  purged  away  from  this 
beautiful  delineation;  the  reserved  virginity  of  the 
maiden  wife  is  attested  only  in  what  was  so  clearly 
but  delicately  implied  in  the  disordered  sequence 


agS  THE  OTHELLO, 

of  the  nuptial  incidents  and  in  the  delayed  call  for 
the  wedding  sheets — tints  which  perhaps  even  un- 
cultured minds  could  distinguish  when  nuptial 
poetry  was  blooming,  but  wliich,  alas,  have  been 
utterly  lost  to  later  generations  since  that  old  im- 
agery has  faded  from  sight. 

Eagerly  copying  him  when  they  could,  the  play- 
wriglit  associates  and  successors  of  Shakespeare 
could  do  little  with  such  a  master  stroke  as  the  in- 
cident of  the  wedding  sheets  more  than  to  admire 
it.  In  their  hands  such  veiled  insinuations  would 
have  been  too  weak  for  the  tastes  of  their  audi- 
ences; so  they  .went  on  requiring  the  waiting- 
women  to  chafT  the  brides,  vVhile  the  bridegrooms 
displayed  the  usual  transports  and  their  usual  dis- 
position to  rejoice  over  the  proofs  nature  could 
furnish  of  a  virginity  not  lost  until  marriage. 
They  could  not  leave  such  things  to  be  implied  by 
the  mere  mention  of  the  wedding  sheets. 

While  in  this  study  it  has  been  argueid  that  the 
Elizabethan  playgoers  as  a  class  must  have  dis- 
cerned and  appreciated  the  beauty  of  the  platonic 
marriage,  I  have  sometimes  had  doubts  whether 
the  delineation  was  not  too  refined  for  all  but  the 
higher  minds  among  them.  The  ordinary  play- 
goers were  familiar  with  hymeneal  suggestion 
and  with  the  device  of  arrested  marriage;  but  not 
with  so  delicate  a  method  of  treatment.  Did  they 
understand  fully  that  Othello  was  taken  to  the  door 
of  the  nuptial  chamber  and  caused  to  face  the  most 
inviting,  lawful  opportunity  in  order  to  test  him  to 
the  uttermost,  and  that  he  was  equal  to  it?    The 


CULMINATION  OF  THE   WEDDING  PLOT.     299 

delineation  is  there,  but  we  must  have  the  insight 
to  perceive  it  through  instant  appreciation  or  pro- 
longed study.  Could  the  Elizabethans  grasp  the 
truth  finally  and  completely  from  what  was  im- 
plied in  the  call  for  the  wedding  sheets?  Did  they 
perceive  the  implication  in  lago's  quick  diange  of 
his  early  plan  for  revenge?  We  must  doubt  it; 
the  stroke  is  so  delicate.  lago's  first  nebulous 
scheme  for  vengeance  was  to  corrupt  Desdemona, 
and  he  said  distinctly  he  would  not  resort  to  that  of 
throwing  Othello  into  a  jealousy  until  the  effort  to 
tamper  with  the  young  wife  had  failed.  During 
the  voyage  to  Cyprus  he  was  in  close  association 
with  Desdemona,  had  every  opportunity  to  study 
her,  and  he  continued  to  think  she  might  be  access- 
ible down  to  the  revelations  of  the  nuptial  night. 
Then  he  changed  instantly — dropped  the  half- 
formed  scheme  of  approaching  Desdemona  as  out 
of  the  question,  and  took  up  the  second  plan. 
What  occurred  that  night  to  convince  him  the  vir- 
tue of  Desdemona  was  impregnable  when  he  had 
not  thought  so  before?  Nothing,  surely,  but  the 
indications  of  the  absence  of  the  Moor  from  Desde- 
mona's  chamber,  and  of  her  super-chaste  life  in 
marriage.  lago  gives  no  reason  for  his  change, 
and  we  can  only  imply  it  from  the  disclosures  of  the 
night:  the  intimation  is  delicate  almost  to  vague- 
ness. 

The  highest  function  of  art  is  to  reveal  the  god- 
like to  man,  and  it  would  seem  as  if  in  this  play 
Shakespeare  believed  he  was  approaching  truths  so 
divine  and  high  that  only  superfine  methods  could 


300  THE   OTHELLO. 

touch  them.  lagt)  slinks  away  from  Desdemona 
without  even  betraying  the  source  of  his  disap- 
pointment. Allusions  and  incidents  which  gave 
even  Shakespeare  a  coarse  delight  when  they  played 
about  his  other  women  are  not  suffered  to  touch 
Desdemona.  The  beautiful  truth  is  outlined,  but 
Shake^speare  took  no  care  as  previously  to  bring 
his  meaning  home  to  ordinary  minds,  but  seems 
to  have  believed  he  was  touching  in  the  arrested 
marriage  upon  a  truth  so  high  and  holy  that  only 
the  uttermost  refinements  of  his  art  could  be  em- 
ployed. If  classes  of  people,  and  even  whole  gene- 
rations, should  fail  to  catch  the  meaning,  so  much 
the  wofse  for  them.  He  would  paint  the  picture 
with  the  delic'acy  proper  to  it,  as  one  almost  reach- 
ing over  from  the  human  to  the  divine,  and  leave 
the  appreciation  to  such  persons  and  such  centuries 
as  could  seize  upon  it  by  intuition  or  by  virtue  of 
prolonged  and  reverent  study.  Such  has  some- 
times been  my  thought  when  the  pendulum  has 
swung  back  from  a  belief  of  the  early  audiences 
perceiving  the  full  beauty  and  glory  of  the  tragedy. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

lAGO  AND   HIS  DUPE. 

As  the  critics  long  ago  felt  compelled  to  look 
for  some  other  meaning  in  the  **  Othello  '*  than  mis- 
cegenation and  animal  jealousy,  they  could  not  well 
stop  with  the  mere  whitening  of  the  Moor.  At  best 
that  could  only  improve  the  marriage  a  few  de- 
grees: the  great  want  was  to  get  away  from  it  alto- 
gether and  fix  the  attention  elsewhere.  Hence,  a 
great  labor  of  Shakespearean  scholarship  has  been 
to  render  the  piece  the  play  of  lago  *  rather  than 
the  play  of  Othello;  with  the  interest  drawn  away 
from  the  strange  m'arriage  to  the  lurid  success  of 
the  ensign  in  poisoning  the  mind  of  the  Moor. 

Thus  the  critics  give  us  the  strange,  anomalous 
thing  of  a  play  of  crude  pessimism — a  gore-piece,  a 
morbid  study  of  the  abnormal — coming  from 
Shakespeare  at  the  height  of  his  power,  when  his 
contemporaries  were  praising  him  for  his  wondrous 
art  of  evkDking  sympathy  and  working  his  plots  so 
as  to  mold  them  anew  with  heavenly  fire. 

*  Brandes,  one  of  the  latest  and  ablest  commentators, 
holds  to  this  old  theory.  "  The  umbilical  cord "  directly 
connecting  the  master  with  his  work  "  leads  not  to  the  char- 
acter of  Othello,  but  to  that  of  lago."  He  thinks  the  play 
**a  study  of  wickedness  in  its  might." 

301 


302  THE   OTHELLO. 

It  is  not  so.  If  Shakespeare  ever  forgot  himself, 
his  art,  and  his  time,  it  was  not  when  he  wrote  the 
"  Othello.'*  His  peculiar  art  of  redeeming  and 
transforming  is  not  absent  from  this  play;  it  is  dis- 
played here  at  its  finest.  We  shall  find,  indeed, 
that  we  cannot  avail  ourselves  oi  the  justification 
of  searching  out  the  full  might  of  wickedness  in 
lago  as  one  that  authorizes  us  to  class  the  play  as  a 
thing  apart  in  the  work  of  Shakespeare;  for  it  is 
not  until  we  restore  it  to  its  true  place  that  we  can 
appreciate  the  baleful  intellectual  power  of  the 
ensign's  character. 

With  the  Moor,  as  one  writer  says,  whipped  by 
the  ancient  as  a  boy  whips  a  great  humming-top, 
we  not  only  demean  the  great  and  ennobled-charac- 
ter  for  wliom  we  ought  to  feel  sympathy,  but, 
doubly  failing,  we  actually  impair  and  becloud  the 
brilliant  exploit  of  the  malignant  villain.  For, 
paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  it  is  not  until  we  see 
Othello  to  be  in  a  sense  his  own  victim  in  the  wed- 
ding plot  of  the  play  that  we  can  appreciate  the  in- 
tellectual adroitness  of  lago  in  taking  advantage 
of  that  same  situation,  converting  it  to  his  uses,  and 
employing  its  rare  and  exceptional  secret  as  the 
nurse  and  mother  of  Othello's  wrong  suspicion. 

Perhaps  the  very  hig'hest  display  of  lago's  skill 
is  when  he  meets  on  the  instant  a  difificulty  not  pos- 
sible to  arrange  for,  but  which  came  on  him  like  a 
flash,  born  of  the  Moor's  self-wrought  involvement 
in  the  marriage,  and  was  yet  utilized  by  the  crafty 
villain  with  surpassing  force  and  effect.  Missing 
that,  we  miss  one  of  the  finest  strokes  of  the  drama. 


I  A  GO  AND  HIS  DUPE.  303 

And  lago's  finest  craft  witti  Roderigo  is  inextrica- 
bly bound  up  in  the  wedding  plot. 

Throwing  the  play  out  of  harmony  the  moment 
they  insist  on  any  other  governing  note  than  the 
one  of  the  arrested  marriage,  the  critics  fail  even  of 
their  chief  purpose — the  exaltation  of  lago.  With- 
out the  hymeneal  underplot  we  cannot  perceive  the 
fine  contest  in  the  acumen  of  lago  which  enabled 
him  at  one  time  to  presume  to  the  verge  of  hazard, 
and  yet  with  perfect  success,  on  the  unnatural  ten- 
sion of  the  Moor,  while  at  another  it  caused  the 
knave  to  realize,  with  quick  and  cautious  acuteness, 
that  he  must  not  dare  ask  Othello  to  believe  Des- 
demona's  guilt  probable  on  the  basis  of  his  own 
knowledge  of  her  as  a  husband,  but  must  qualify 
the  general  charge  craftily.  There  is  nothing  more 
wonderful  in  intellectual  villainy  than  lago's  quick- 
veering  and  self-adjusting  craft.  But  to  appreciate 
this  we  must  see  him  both  in  his  cautious,  pre- 
hensive  turns,  and  in  his  bold  and  seemingly  reck- 
less advances. 

The  false  story  presented  to  Othello's  mind  really 
hung  by  threads.  If  the  handkerchief  had  not  been 
lost;  if  Emilia  h'ad  told  the  truth  about  it,  and  Des- 
demona  had  been  more  openly  courageous  and  less 
timidly  evasive;  if  Cassio  had  spoken  in  a  louder 
tone  when  talking  of  Bianca,  or  had  plainly  given 
her  name;  if  Roderigo,  that  most  dangerous  tool, 
had  not  stood  the  putting  on,  had  demanded  his 
jewels  of  Desdemona  or  persisted  in  his  wrath 
against  the  ancient;  if  Cassio  and  Othello  could 
have   faced   each   other   in   frankly   characteristic 


304  THE   OTHELLO. 

Speech  for  a  few  minutes,  or  if  the  Moor  had 
searched  out  Roderigo  after  the  brawl,  or  had  made 
any  careful  and  cautious  inquiry  in  almost  any  di- 
rection, lago  must  certainly  have  been  exposed. 
It  is  not  dramatically  true  to  think  lago  could  have 
taken  such  risks  as  these  had  he  not  believed  the 
Moor  was  in  such  a  position  and  such  a  frame  of 
mind  as  to  be  beside  himself  and  incapable  of  pru- 
dence. 

Very  different  lago  when  plunged  suddenly  into 
a  real  difficulty.  Observe  his  art  in  the  light  of  the 
nuptial  by-plot. 

The  elder  Booth  is  described  as  speaking  the 
opening  line  of  lago's  axial  speech  in  the  tempta- 
tion scene,  "Ay,  there's  the  point;  as,  to  be  bold 
with  you  "  (III.  iii.  228-238),  as  not  only  referring 
to  Desdemona's  open  conduct  with  the  Moor,  but 
"  insidiously  summoning  to  Othello's  memory 
secret  occasions  when  she  had  shown  *  a  will  most 
rank  '  and  been  '  bold  '  with  him."  Whether  this 
rendering  of  the  particular  line  be  correct  or  not, 
there  is,  I  insist,  no  way  to  stop  short  of  assigning 
that  meaning  to  the  speech  as  a  whole,  so  long  as 
it  is  left  in  the  light  of  the  accepted  interpretations 
and  an  ordinary  marriage  is  assumed.  *'  Foul  dis- 
proportion "  and  "  thoughts  unnatural  "  have  but 
one  meaning  coming  from  lago.  For  Desdemona 
to  refuse  to  marry  within  her  own  clime  and  com- 
plexion could  not  in  itself  be  an  offense  against 
nature  and  decency.  That  could  occur  only  when 
her  turn  from  her  own  countrymen  was  followed 
by  relations  with  some  man  of  another  and  an  alien 


lAGO  AND  HIS  DUPE.  3^5 

race  which,  if  legal,  were  nevertheless  foul  and  un- 
natural. 

But  whether  unnatural  passion  was  or  was  not 
Desdemona's  motive  in  marrying  the  Moor,  lago 
knew  that  the  one  man  who  could  determine  the 
matter  on  the  basis  of  his  own  knowledge  was 
Othello;  provided  only  he  knew  her  as  an  actual 
husband.  In  that  event  Iago*s  accusation  must 
either  strike  Othello  dumb  with  its  known  truth  or 
provoke  him  to  anger  by  its  known  falsity. 
Greatly  as  the  Moor  blunders  at  times,  we  cannot 
believe  he  could  be  guilty  of  the  wanton  wrong  of 
permitting  an  aspersion  of  his  wife  whidh  he  per- 
sonally knew  to  be  absolutely  false  to  pass  unre- 
buked.  Certainly  not  at  this  early  stage,  when  he 
yet  thinks  Desdemona  honest.  Turning  to  the 
other  horn  of  the  dilemma,  we  see — if  he  was  an 
actual  husband — that  his  conduct  in  so  soon  giving 
way  to  lago's  base  characterization  of  Desdemona 
must  be  accepted  as  proving  his  knowledge  of  her 
nature  to  be  such  that  he  could  neither  protest 
against  nor  disbelieve  a  charge  of  conduct  which  he 
had  to  think  both  probable  and  characteristic.  Re- 
pulsive as  is  a  conclusion  so  ruinous  to  Desdemona 
and  harmful  to  the  Moor,  there  is  no  escape  from 
it  if  the  marriage  was  a  consummated  one.  Rather 
than  think  Othello  would  stand  mute  when  Desde- 
mona was  first  maligned,  or  that  his  fading  wrath 
was  such  as  would  be  satisfied  with  a  decidedly 
suspicious  attempt  to  withdraw  the  slander  on 
his  wife  and  with  no  sort  of  real  justice  done  her, 
we  are  compelled  to  believe  with  Booth  that  it  is 


^o6  THE  OTHELLO. 

the  Moor's  allegiance  to  truth  which  overpowers 
him;  that  lago  successfully  appeals  to  his  memo- 
ries of  the  feminine  will  "  most  rank  "  and  actions 
*'  bold."  But  we  cannot  shoot  Niagara  and  stop 
halfway  down :  we  'have  to  conclude  that  the  wife's 
vile  nature  is  proved  by  her  own  husband,  and  the 
play  must  sink  under  the  weight  of  gross  natural- 
ism, of  an  inglorious  Moor,  and  a  wretchedly  be- 
draggled Desdemona.*  Booth  simply  carried  the 
common  theory  to  its  inevitable  conclusion. 

Actors  of  Othello  have  sought  by  a  stage  ma- 
neuver to  get  away  from  the  destructive  scholastic 
theory  of  the  ^temptation  sc£ne.  and  have  been  en- 
couraged in  so  doing  by  critics  who  fail  to  see  that 
a  half-justification  of  the  Moor  or  a  half  or  wrongly 
directed  anger  in  him  at  this  point  is  inconsistent 
and  altogether  insufficient.  With  no  word  of  pro- 
test at  this  flagging  stage  in  Othello's  linens,  they 
have  sought  to  help  out  the  seeming  dumbfounded, 
silent,  consenting  attitude  of  the  Moor  by  causing 
him  to  turn  with  threatening  expression  and  glare 
fiercely  at  lago  for  a  moment  when  he  broached 
the  suggestion  of  "  thoughts  unnatural  " ;  although 
a  little  later  succumbing  altogether  and  showing 
plainly  that  the  wrath  was  inspired  by  the  ensign's 
impudence  and  not  by  a  sense  of  justice  prompting 
him  to  defend  his  wife's  character.     There  is  cer- 


*  Hazlitt  could  think  of  Desdemona  as  excessive  in  bodily 
appetite,  but  delicate  in  mind — a  fair  and  dainty  miscege- 
nationist !  So,  heroically,  did  he  struggle  to  save  Shakes- 
peare. 


lAGO  AND  HIS  DUPE.  30? 

tainly  full  warrant  and  necessity  for  some  display 
of  anger  by  Othello;  but  a  passing  ebullition 
against  lago,  followed  by  a  speedy  collapse  when 
the  ensign  apologizes,  cannot  suffice.  It  is  out  of 
harmony  with  the  scene  further  on,  and  it  leaves 
the  devoted  wife  without  a  syllable  of  true,  sympa- 
thetic defense  just  where  the  Moor  should  have 
voiced  it  most  fervently.  Later  we  might  pardon 
him  because  the  poison  is  working  powerfully,  but 
not  yet.  *'  Now,  very  now  "  should  he  speak.  And 
yet  we  are  asked  to  think  him  voiceless  on  behalf 
of  Desdemona  now,  and  indignant  later  on  when 
time  enough  has  passed  for  his  mind  to  be  infected 
and  his  confidence  undermined.  Never  did 
Shakespeare  so  blunder. 

Feeling  instinctively  that  the  noble  Moor  must 
show  some  sort  of  indignation  at  this  early 
point, — at  least  that  of  facial  expression, — the 
actors  and  critics  have  been  shut  off  by  Othello's 
ensuing  silence  and  surrender  from  giving  it 
proper  expression  and  direction.  Lacking  the 
true  key,  this  indeed  cannot  be  done.  The  best 
possible  for  the  Moor,  in  view  of  the  way  lago 
quickly  puts  down  his  pegs  of  wrath,  is  to  suppose 
that  anger  arose  in  his  face  at  the  presumption  of 
the  ensign  in  aspersing  Desdemona,  but  before  the 
feeling  could  find  expression  in  act  or  voice  it  was 
foiled  partly  by  the  ancient's  humble  effort  to  re- 
cant, but  more  completely  by  an  upward-surging, 
overwhelming  consciousness  in  Othello's  mind  that 
the  rank  will  and  actions  bold  were  truths  and  the 
accusation  against  his  wife  had  a  basis  only  too 


3o8  THE  OTHELLO. 

credible  and  probable  in  the  light  of  his  own  mari- 
tal knowledge  of  her. 

Although  this  is  the  best  that  has  been  done  with 
this  speech,  we  can  never  be  satisfied  with  such 
degradation.  The  actors  have  been  right  in  por- 
traying rising  anger  on  the  face  of  Othello;  they 
should  see,  however,  that  it  was  no  mere  puf¥ed-up 
resentment  of  lago's  supposed  impudence,  but  that 
the  Moor  was  fired  by  a  generous,  righteous  indig- 
nation, strong  for  the  moment  at  least  and  born 
of  his  conviction  that  he  personally  knew  Desde- 
mona  to  be  the  reverse  of  what  she  was  dharged. 
Assigning  the  expression  of  anger  on  Othello's 
face  this  worthy  and  appropriate  meaning,  we  need 
no  longer  fear  being  unable  to  give  a  consistent 
explanation  of  his  silence  during  the  remainder  of 
lago's  speech,  but  may  at  last  rise  to  an  apprecia- 
tion of  that  utterance  as  one  so  fearful  in  suggest- 
ive power  and  craft  that  it  might  well  drive  the 
mounting  anger  from  the  Moor's  countenance  and 
force  him  at  the  end  to  cower  as  he  did,  begging  to 
be  left  alone  in  his  misery.  The  true  theory 
straightens  out  the  difficulty  of  Othello's  sudden 
collapse,  and  shows  the  tremendous  change  to  be 
the  result  of  the  unsurpassable  cunning  of  lago. 
Here,  indeed,  is  a  most  signal  display  of  his  power. 
Waking  wrath  came  to  the  Moor  at  first  when  he 
thought  how  different  the  Desdemona  he  knew 
was  from  the  one  lago  pictured;  but  it  quickly 
faded  into  agony  and  collapse  when  lago  brought 
her  abstinent  conduct  in  the  marriage  into  line  and 
harmony  with  her  suggested  vileness  outside  it — 


lAGO  AND  HIS  DUPE.  309 

explained  it  as  at  once  a  recoil  to  Cassio  and  to  her 
**  better  judgment,"  a  timely  and  "  happy  "  repent- 
ance 1 

lago  does  not,  as  has  been  thought,  turn  at  once 
from  poisonous  insinuation  against  De'sdemona  to 
a  flimsy,  awkward,  puerile  pretense  of  having  let 
the  accusation  pass  his  lips  unguardedly,  and  then 
afterward  vainly  trying  to  recall  it — a  paltry  device 
worthy  of  a  beginner  in  duplicity,  not  such  an  ex- 
pert as  he.  We  are  not  required  to  think  of 
Othello's  rising  anger  as  a  mere  arrogant,  pride- 
inspired  ebullition  against  the  presumption  of  lago 
which  was  allayed  and  satisfied  by  the  ancient's 
transparent  effort  to  recant.  Nor  did  secret  knowl- 
edge of  Desdemona  start  up  suddenly,  ruining  all 
faith  in  her.  No;  the  anger  which  started  in 
Othello's  face  was  the  manly  indignation  of  the 
husband  who  felt  that  of  his  own  knowledge  he 
knew  Desdemona  to  be  the  opposite  of  the  calumny 
put  upon  her;  but  before  this  feeling  could  be  ex- 
pressed in  act  or  voice  the  marvelous  cunning  ol 
lago  turned  it  awry. 

"  But  pardon  me;  I  do  not  in  position 
Distinctly  speak  of  her;  though  I  may  fear 
Her  will,  recoiling  to  her  better  judment, 
May  fall  to  match  you  with  her  country  forms, 
And  happily  repent." 

No  anger  after  this  rapier  thrust;  only  choking 
appeals  of  "  farewell,  farewell,"  and  "  leave  me, 
lago."  Only  in  the  light  of  the  arrested  marriage 
can  we  see  this  wonderful  stroke.  Without  that 
great  truth  we  cannot  get  away  from  the  common- 


3IO  THE   OTHELLO. 

place,  unworthy  conceptions  of  this  scene  which 
have  been  so  long  prevalent. 

Not  showing  any  sustained  anger,  and  surely  not 
quieted  by  a  transparent  retraction  utterly  un- 
worthy of  lago  or  the  play,  we  must  think,  with  re- 
spect for  logical  truth  at  least,  that  the  Moor — if  an 
actual  husband — had  his  marital  memories  of  Des- 
demona  successfully  invoked  in  proof  of  her  vile- 
ness.  The  degradation  of  her  character  is  thus 
attested  by  her  own  husband,  and  it  is  but  faint  con- 
solation for  us  to  know  she  is  not  guilty  with  Cas- 
sio.  If  she  reveled  in  miscegenation  for  a  time,  we 
cannot,  with  Hazlitt,  still  think  her  delicate-minded, 
but  woefully  the  reverse.  Such  is  the  painful  and 
distressing  outcome  of  the  common  theory — the 
only  logical  stopping-place — so  long  as  we  think 
that  when  lago  breathed  forth  icy-lipped  slander 
and  Othello  listened  at  this  turning-point  both  had 
in  mind  a  consummated  marriage.  If  so,  the  art  of 
the  scene  and  of  the  play  is  thrown  into  ruin. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  we  understand  that 
both  speaker  and  listener  were  thinking  of  an  un- 
consummate  union,  the  doubling  back  or  seeming 
contradiction  in  lago's  speech  is  a  turn  of  surpass- 
ing adroitness.  lago  foils  the  rising  wrath  of 
Othello  by  saying  that  any  bridal  arrest  or  recoil 
from  him  after  marriage  would  indicate  only  that 
Desdemona  turned  back  in  time  to  a  man  of  her 
own  race,  having  failed  to  "  match  you  with  her 
country  forms  "  and  having  "  happily  repented  "  of 
her  first,  unnatural  choice;  not  that  there  was  any 
abatement  of  her  ungovernable  appetite.     Such  is 


I  AGO  AND  HIS  DUPE.  %1X 

the  more  than  fiendish  cunning  with  which  lago 
reaches  into  the  hoHest  place  in  the  soul  of  the 
Moor,  catches  him  securely  at  the  one  difficult  and 
dangerous  point,  holding  to  the  slander  of  Desde- 
mona's  motive,  and  yet  squaring  it  with  Othello's 
knowledge  of  her  contented  abstinence,  turning 
goodness  into  pitch  even  beyond  the  measure  of  his 
Satanic  hope. 

Although  the  prime  ground  of  the  slander 
whispered  in  Othello's  ear  is  that  of  Desdemona 
being  a  woman  of  unnatural  passion,  marrying  as 
she  did,  lago  does  not  insinuate  that  in  wedlock 
she  has  ever  manifested  desires  or  ardors  ques- 
tionable in  the  least.  Othello  would  know  that 
to  be  absolutely  false,  without  a  first  shadow  of 
truth;  and  with  the  underlying  insinuation  known 
to  be  untrue,  the  whole  ground  of  calumny  would 
be  likely  to  fall  away  from  his  mind.  Here,  cer- 
tainly, was  most  dangerous  ground  for  lago,  un- 
less he  knew  the  whole  truth  and  could  play  upon 
it  consistently.  Because  of  his  dexterous  villainy, 
and  because  he  knew  the  truth  of  the  marriage, 
lago  was  equal  to  the  emergency — capable  of  ac- 
cusing Desdemona  of  unnatural  desire,  and  yet  com- 
pelling the  base  charge  to  fit  in  and  square  with 
the  beautiful  truth  of  her  saved  virginity  in  mar- 
riage; and  he  cunningly  did  this  by  seeming  to  con- 
jecture that  after  the  wedding  she  stopped  short, 
not  being  equal,  when  the  test  came,  to  her  pro- 
posed and  planned  outrage  on  nature.  That  fits  in 
perfectly  with  her  abstention  in  wedlock  as  known 
to  Othello,  and  yet  permits  the  charge  of  extreme 


312  THE    OTHELLO. 

appetite  to  stand  and  to  point  toward  Cassio. 
Thus  does  lago  adroitly  avoid  carrying  his  asper- 
sion of  Desdemona  to  the  point  of  implying  actual 
n*»^'  miscegenaticin ;  and  thus  also  does  he  disclose  his 
conviction  she  is  yet  in  her  virginal  state.  This 
marvelous  dramaturgic  art  is  utterly  lost  in  the  pre- 
vailing interpretations  of  the  play.* 

Just  here  we  may  pause  to  consider  a  parallel  in- 
stance of  modern  miscorrection  and  misinterpreta- 
tion in  this  play.  Bowdler,  with  a  taste  for  emenda- 
tion almost  equal  to  his  insatiable  one  for  expurga- 
tion, suggested  that  it  would  greatly  improve  the 
probability  of  the  plot  if  Cassio  instead  of  lago  had 
sailed  on  the  vessel  with  Desdemona  on  the  trip  to 
Cyprus,  as  there  would  then  be  a  supposable  oppor- 
tunity for  the  guilt  imputed  to  the  lieutenant,  and 
the  jealousy  of  the  Moor  would  not  seem  so  irra- 
tional— a  suggestion  esteemed  by  many  writers  as 
one  of  those  which  small  minds  can  sometimes  sup- 
ply to  amend  the  work  of  great.  But  surely  it  is 
quite  different.  Bowdler's  idea  of  assigning  the 
opportunities  for  guilt  to  the  voyage  would  take 
away  the  intense  and  piteous  tragic  woe  of  Othello 
being  compelled  to  see  and  think  of  them  as  ex- 
isting only  in  the  hours  of  his  own  holy  and  volun- 

*  The  doubUng,  serpentine  conclusion  of  lago's  speech, 
after  he  has  imputed  unnatural  passion  to  Desdemona,  I 
would  paraphrase  thus  :  But  I  do  not  mean  to  take  the 
position  that  she  will  distinctly  and  literally  act  out  this 
spirit  with  you  in  the  marriage  ;  for  I  fear  she  may  fall  to 
comparing  you  with  her  countrymen,  and,  recoiling  to 
her  better  judgment,  happily  repent.  He  slyly  uses  the 
future  tense,  knowing  the  Moor  must  revert  to  the  past. 


lAGO  AND  HIS  DUPE.  3^3 

tary  absence  when  he  spent  the  night  under  the 
same  roof  with  Desdemona,  but  away  from  her 
chamber.  The  double  stroke  of  proving  his  ab- 
sence, and  of  having  him  suspect  Cassio's  presence 
at  the  time  and  place  suited  only  to  the  most 
poignant  guilt,  would  be  utterly  lost.  Blind  to  the 
nuptial  by-plot,  Bowdler  offered  a  change  which 
would  pervert,  not  improve,  Shakespeare's  work. 
So  with  the  long  array  of  brilliant  writers  who,  de- 
termined to  find  some  worthy  or  at  least  artistic 
purpose  in  the  play,  and  missing  the  true  one  of  the 
marriage,  have  struggled  so  persistently  to  push 
the  marriage  out  of  sight  and  compel  us  to  think 
of  the  Moor  and  Desdemona  merely  as  subjects  im- 
paled for  the  fiendish  sport  and  triumph  of  lago. 
Striving,  as  they  thought,  to  do  justice  to  the  in- 
tellectual power  of  lago,  even  at  the  expense  of 
Othello,  they  have  really  done  a  great  wrong  to 
the  consistent  power  displayed  in  both.  We  must 
see  the  truth  of  the  wedding  plot,  alike  if  we  are  to 
palliate  Othello's  surrender  to  doubt  or  to  appre- 
ciate the  skill  of  lago  in  playing  upon  the  fact  of 
the  arrested  union  and  effecting  that  marvelously 
adroit  turn  when  he  had  to  face  a  desperate 
emergency  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  and  in- 
stantly square  his  characterization  of  Desdemona 
with  the  contradictory  truth  known  to  Othello. 

It  is  contrary  to  all  previous  criticism,  but  I  in- 
sist that  Roderigo  was  a  dupe  who  taxed  strongly 
lago's  skill  and  displayed  it  at  its  highest.  From 
the    first    lago    anticipated    little    difficulty    with 


314  THE   OTHELLO. 

Othello;  he  had  no  thought  of  the  emergency  he 
did  stumble  upon,  but  believed  the  Moor  could 
be  led  by  the  nose  "  as  tenderly  as  asses  are  '* 
and  made  "  egregiously  an  ass."  Just  the  con- 
trary is  the  case  with  Roderigo.  "  If  this  trash 
of  Venice  will  stand  the  putting  on."  He  recog- 
nizes the  possibility  of  failure  with  Roderigo;  some- 
thing he  never  does  with  Othello.  Down  to  the 
last  he  fears  Roderigo  will  force  him  to  "  restitu- 
tion large."  It  is  true  he  speaks  of  Roderigo  as  a 
fool  and  as  a  "  snipe,"  indicating  his  contempt  for 
one  who  surrendered  to  passion's  sway,  but  he 
never  thinks  of  working  him  so  easily  as  the  Moor. 
The  truth  is,  even  the  dharacter  of  Roderigo — en- 
tirely Shakespeare's  own  and  with  no  suggestion 
from  Cinthio — has  been  singularly  misconceived  in 
the  eclipse  of  the  hymeneal  underplot.  He  was  not 
a  mere  libidinous  popinjay  who  could  be  duped 
without  effort  or  by  any  tale,  but  was  to  be  handled 
only  by  a  master  in  the  art  of  duplicity — one  never 
so  consummately  cunning  as  when  disguising  art 
under  an  appearance  of  coarse  bluntness  and  crude- 
ness. 

Roderigo  was  a  man  of  wealth,  holding  the  rank 
of  a  gentleman,  and  had  been  a  suitor  to  Desde- 
mona.  He  was  repelled  by  Brabantio,  but  seem- 
ingly only  on  account  of  his  looseness,  and  not 
strenuously  on  that  ground;  for  after  the  elopement 
the  old  senator  sincerely  regrets  that  Roderigo  had 
not  won  his  daughter.  Brabantio  appeals  to  Rod- 
erigo to  know  whether,  in  his  studies  or  reading,  he 
had  not  heard  of  the  arts  inhibited,  such  as  were 


lAGO  AND  HIS  DUPE.  3 "5 

charged  against  Ot'hello,  implying  that  the  question 
was  to  a  man  of  education  and  some  scholarly 
habits.  Later  the  old  magnifico  thanks  "  good 
Roderigo  ";  promises  to  appreciate  and  deserve  his 
help.  Roderigo,  moreover,  displays  signal  courage, 
braving  the  valiant  Cassio  on  two  occasions  in  a 
manner  worthy  of  a  better  purpose.  Rich,  edu- 
cated, courageous,  dubbed  a  gentleman  when  that 
title  meant  much,  deferred  to  by  the  old  senator, 
Roderigo  is  not,  with  all  his  vice  and  folly,  to  be  set 
down  as  a  contemptible  cully,  but  is  a  figure  far 
more  worthy  of  lago's  art. 

In  Elizabethan  dramatic  literature  the  sensualist 
who  was  notably  choice  in  taste  sought  the  maiden 
prize,  passing  a  wife  or  widow  as,  in  the  language 
of  Fletcher's  Oriana,  a  zone  untied,  a  lily  trod  upon. 
Much  more  pungent  phrases,  expressive  of  this 
conceit,  must  occur  to  anyone  familiar  with  that 
old  literature.  Since  those  expressions  reflected 
the  epicurean  sensualism  of  the  time  in  men  of 
quality,  a  prejudiced,  Moor-hating  Elizabethan 
audience  could  think  of  Roderigo  looking  forward 
eagerly  to  win  the  discarded  wife  of  a  blackamoor 
only  in  case  he  was  a  wretch  animated  by  peculiarly 
gross,  repulsive  passion  and  degraded  far  below  his 
proper  rank.  Roderigo  was  no  such  man.  He 
represents  the  aristocratic  form  of  sensual  vice;  he 
sought  Desdemona  as  a  daintier  prize  than  was  to 
be  found  in  all  that  display  of  carnal  beauty  which 
Venice  offered  to  a  man  of  his  character  and  means. 

Roderigo's  mind  was  warped  by  passion,  infected 
by  the  folly  always  accompanying  illicit  desires,  and 


3^6  THE   OTHELLO. 

yet  he  was  not  utterly  blinded  or  as  foul  in  taste  as 
in  morals.  We  have  only  to  read  carefully  to  see 
that  his  pursuit  of  Desdemona  was  animated  by  the 
hope  of  securing  her  while  in  a  virginal  state  and 
in  name  only  a  wife  to  the  Moor.  Consider  his  ex- 
pressions. He  believed  Desdemona  to  be  living  in 
"  a  most  blessed  condition,"  although  married  to 
a  Moor,  and  could  not  credit  anything  which  im- 
puted either  immodesty  or  indelicacy  to  her  ("  I 
cannot  believe  that  in  her  " — "  Why,  'tis  not  pos- 
sible " — '*  That  was  but  courtesy  "),  obviously  ex- 
pecting if  he  ever  met  success  to  attain  it  through 
her  soft  feminine  weakness  rather  than  any  inclina- 
tion to  wrong.  His  expressions  show  he  regarded 
Desdemona  as  a  creature  of  singularly  sweet  and 
delicate  life;  came  as  near  the  reverential  attitude 
of  Cassio  as  such  a  man  could;  and  was  continu- 
ally dropping  away  from  any  belief  in  the  possi- 
bility of  winning  her  even  through  her  gentleness 
and  simplicity,  and  having  to  be  bolstered  up  anew 
by  lago  from  time  to  time. 

Frequently  in  despair  of  winning  Desdemona  be- 
cause her  virtue  seemed  to  him  impregnable,  on  the 
occasion  of  the  nuptial  celebration  Roderigo  was 
ready  to  give  up  the  chase  for  a  different  reason — 
because  he  thought  the  prize  had  lost  or  would 
soon  lose  its  charm.  He  compared  himself  to  the 
hound  that  followed  behind,  filling  up  the  pack  and 
coming  too  late,  while  another  at  the  front  would 
gain  the  prey.  lago  also  tells  us  Roderigo  was  a 
hound  of  *'  quick  hunting."  He  could  not  be  satis- 
fied with  a  prospect  of  being  second  or  arriving 


lAGO  AMD  HIS  DUPE.  3^7 

after  the  game  was  caught.  Just  what  Roderigo 
knew  about  the  nuptial  celebration  is  uncertain — 
probably  not  much  more  than  lago  told  him,  for  he 
was  not  one  of  the  revelers,  but  was  skulking  on 
the  edge  of  the  scene  in  disguise.  He  was  pres- 
ent, however,  at  the  joyous,  loving  reunion  of 
Othello  and  Desdemona  at  Cyprus,  and  a  man  of 
his  character  must  have  had  strong  doubts  whether 
the  platonic  marriage  could  continue  much  longer 
under  the  new  circumstances.  As  his  money  was 
going  and  difficulties  increased,  and  Desdemona 
seemed  to  be  passing  on  toward  a  consummated 
vmion  with  Othello,  Roderigo  began  to  flag.  Day 
is  breaking  after  fhe  night  of  the  jubilee  and  the 
nuptial  celebration  when  the  discouraged  Roderigo 
appears,  lamenting  all  opportunity  or  temptation  as 
about  gone  or  soon  to  be  gone  forever  for  him, 
and  declares  he  will  be  likely  soon  to  return  to 
Venice  with  a  little  more  wit  and  experience  and 
no  money  at  all. 

It  is  curious  what  a  different  method  lago  em- 
ploys for  this  emergency  with  Roderigo  than  for 
the  previous  one.  As  Roderigo  now  calls  a  halt  for 
a  new  reason,  lago  has  to  start  him  with  a  new  sug- 
gestion, but  he  is  as  indirect  and  circuitous  as  ever 
in  offering  it.  He  prates  of  patience,  congratulates 
Roderigo  on  making  good  progress,  especially  in 
displanting  Cassio,  reproaches  him  for  not  allowing 
reasonable  time,  and  declares  the  conquest  of  Des- 
demona is  proceeding  as  rapidly  and  encouragingly 
as  anyone  could  ask  in  reason.  And  yet,  after 
dwelling  profusely  on  the  encouraging  prospect  of 


31 8  THE  OTHELLO. 

winning  Desdemona  and  giving  all  the  reasons  he 
can  in  support  of  it,  he  touches  the  other  phase  of 
the  matter — whether  Desdemona  will  long  remain 
worth  winning — as  one  not  to  be  discussed  then, 
but  intimates  that  Roderigo  shall  "  know  more  " 
on  some  future  occasion.  So  darkly,  vaguely,  yet 
skillfully,  does  he  touch  the  one  possible  question 
with  Roderigo.  How  often  in  life  we  hear  many 
words  on  inconsequential  matters  with  a  bare  refer- 
ence to  that  about  which  we  hunger  and  thirst,  and 
yet  how  seldom  is  the  trick  played  as  lago  plays  it 
here!  Voluble  about  what  '"o  longer  concerns  the 
halting  dupe,  lago  waxes  profuse  over  the  irrele- 
vant, while  the  real  cause  of  the  collapse  of  the 
"  gull'd  gentleman  "  he  touches  as  a  mere  after- 
thougtht,  and  yet  with  a  quick,  sharp,  arousing  sug- 
gestion of  new  and  encouraging  developments 
which  he  has  not  then  time  to  relate  in  detail 
("  Thou  shalt  know  more  hereafter  "),  but  which 
the  rogue  would  have  understood  as  disclosures  of 
the  nuptial  night  just  passed,  showing  the  prize  yet 
untouched  by  the  Moor  and  so  to  remain  perma- 
nently, thus  sounding,  but  not  satisfying,  the  pre- 
cise source  of  Roderigo's  despair. 

"Does  't  not  go  well?" 

Surely  so.  How,  indeed,  if  fully  informed,  could 
Roderigo  ask  a  finer  prospect  either  as  to  winning 
Desdemona  or  having  her  prove  still  worth  win- 
ning! Aiming  to  arouse,  not  satisfy,  lago  does 
not  proceed  to  give  the  really  desired  information, 
but  suddenly  finds  time  pressing  (*'  By  the  mass, 


lAGO  AND  HIS  DUPE.  3^9 

'tis  morning"),  and  replies  to  the  aroused,  ques- 
tioning attitude  and  expressions  of  the  dupe  only  by 
hurrying  him  off  with  '*  Away,  I  say  "  and  "  Nay, 
get  thee  gone."  The  appointed  meeting,  when 
Roderigo  was  to  "  know  more,"  does  not  take  place 
on  the  stage;  but  we  have  ample  implication  of 
what  was  told  the  dupe  when  waiting  had  suffi- 
ciently whetted  his  appetite.  No  doubt  he  soon 
heard  all  the  enticing  circumstances  that  lago 
could  relate  of  his  own  observation,  and  all  he  had 
learned  t!hrough  Emilia;  and  yet  the  better  judg- 
ment of  Roderigo  was  so  strong  and  self-assertive 
that  at  his  next  appearance  "  this  trash  of  Venice  " 
is  again  in  revolt,  believing  Desdemona,  if  as  de- 
sirable as  ever,  nevertheless  beyond  approach. 

It  will  be  asked  how  so  comparatively  elevated  a 
view  of  Roderigo  as  this  can  be  reconciled  with  the 
grossness  of  the  temptation  lago  spread  before 
him  at  first.  At  the  outset  lago  spoke  of  corrupt- 
ing Desdem^Qna  ,^v\y  aftej,^^er  marriage  with 
Othello  was  consummated,"  and  indeed  when  she 
was  "  sated  with  his  body "  and  had  learned  to 
"  heave  the  gorge  "  and  "  disrelish  and  abhor  the 
Moor  " — a  picture  the*  opposite  of  that  presented 
later.  But  in  this  suggestion  of  a  refined,  alluring 
prospect  at  one  time  with  a  nauseous  one  at  an- 
other we  should  see  the  consummate  art  of  the 
knave.  For  lago  was  as  variable  and  serpentine 
with  Roderigo  as  with  Othello.  Aiming  to  gull 
Roderigo  by  means  of  a  self-wrought,  ingrowing 
temptation  rather  than  one  plainly  foisted  on  him 
from  the  outside,  lago,  at  the  beginning,  held  one 


320  THE  OTHELLO, 

prospect  to  the  dupe's  ear,  well  knowing  another 
and  more  enticing  one  would  be  grasped  by  his 
hope.  But  beyond  this,  lago's  art  is  duplex,  cres- 
cent: his  allurements  grow  and  become  strongest 
and  finest  at  the  critical  time.  At  the  beginning 
the  artful  knave  could  use  the  coarsest  and  appar- 
ently most  inconsiderate  suggestion,  knowing 
Roderigo  was  then  ardent,  fresh  in  the  chase,  and 
sure  to  look  beneath  rough  words  to  perceive  a 
thoroughly  fine  and  tempting  prospect  for  himself; 
but  after  the  dupe  had  encountered  the  disappoint- 
ment of  the  voyage  and  the  more  ominous  one  of 
the  reunion  of  Othello  and  Desdemona  on  landing 
at  Cyprus,  lago  had  to  play  the  strength  reserved 
for  such  an  emergency.  The  need  is  different. 
From  the  first  lago  knew  he  would  have  a  disap- 
pointed man  on  his  hands  when  he  reached  Cyprus, 
and  that  time  has  come.  Words  must  fortify  sug- 
gestions now.  lago  now  needs  a  footing  in  the 
mind  of  his  dupe  such  as  he  could  not  possibly  com- 
mand if  he  had  previously  shown  himself  too  sub- 
tle in  allurements  or  too  glowing  in  promises.  He 
has  now  to  present  the  temptation  as  still  existing, 
still  fit  and  alluring,  and  all  the  brighter  and  more 
feasible  because  seen  by  a  man  who  had  stupidly 
failed  to  see  the  attractive  opportunity  of  the  voy- 
age. That  is  past  and  gone:  the  disappointment 
growing  out  of  it  is  Roderigo's  own,  not  lago's. 

lago's  failure  to  perceive,  and  dilate  on  any 
opportunity  of  the  voyage  had  fixed  him  in  Rod- 
erigo's  mind  as  a  dull-sighted  rogue,  not  one  fertile 
in    allurements.     His    credit    with    Roderigo    is 


I  AGO  AND  HIS  DUPE.  321 

the  stronger  now,  when  he  needs  such  strength. 
It  would  never  have  done  with  a  doubter 
Hke  Roderigo  to  have  had  repeated  disap- 
pointments following  fast  on  rose-colored  prom- 
ises and  predictions.  Undercoloring  instead 
at  first,  lago  kept  his  credit  good  with  Rod- 
erigo and  had  reserve  strength  for  the  crisis 
— a  fresh  rallying  inducement  for  the  trying 
time  of  the  nuptial  celebration.  But  that  this  sub- 
tle villain  really  thought  at  any  time  that  the  pros- 
pect of  succeeding  a  blackamoor  husband  in  the 
favors  of  his  discarded  white  wife  was  a  fit  one  to 
tempt  Roderigo,  cannot  be  believed.  To  represent 
a  man  of  Roderigo's  social  standing  and  familiarity 
with  the  higher  forms  of  vice  in  a  wealthy  society 
as  spurred  to  desperate  eflfort  by  the  hope  of  tak- 
ing Desdemona  from  the  arms  of  a  sated  blacka- 
moor is  a  crudity  too  gross  for  Shakespeare.  While 
the  language  of  lago  at  one  time  presents  that  pros- 
pect in  terms,  we  must  remember  his  character — 
that,  as  Roderigo  once  suspected  for  a  moment,  his 
words  and  his  performances  are  no  kin  together. 
There  is  ample  reason  why  we  should  scan  lago's 
speech  for  some  other  meaning  than  the  surface 
one  and  analyze  his  cunning  until  we  see  not  merely 
the  crude,  open  suggestion  used  at  first,  but  the  real 
morsel  he  intended  the  dupe  to  roll  under  his 
tongue. 

While,  in  his  contemptuous  pride  of  intellect, 
lago  speaks  of  Roderigo  as  a  "  snipe,"  he  betrays 
latent  fear  of  him  down  to  the  last,  and  strives  to 
enlist  his  mind  and  supply  him  with  food  for  mental 


322  THE    OTHELLO. 

action  as  well  as  to  excite  his  passions.  Varying 
his  methods  with  Roderigo  from  time  to  time,  and 
adjusting  ^hem  to  circumstances,  lago  under- 
colors on  one  occasion,  depending  on  the  dupe  to 
strengthen  the  picture  out  of  his  own  imagination, 
while  at  another  he  exaggerates,  confident  that  the 
*'  gull'd  gentleman  "  will  then  cut  down  and  modify. 
But  ever  and  always  he  deals  with  Roderigo  as 
one  who  is  naturally  full  of  suspicion  and  a  dan- 
gerous tool.  Knowing  Roderigo  to  be  a  ques- 
tioner, lago  sees  to  it  that  he  has  something  to 
question.  From  the  first  words  of  the  play,  "  Tush, 
never  tell  me,"  to  '*  I  cannot  believe  that "  and 
"  Tis  not  possible,"  and  on  down  to  the  last  act, 
where  the  slain  Roderigo  is  found  with  a  "  discon- 
tented paper  "  of  protest  in  his  pocket,  the  "  gull'd 
gentleman  "  sits  in  judgment,  as  he  thinks,  on  the 
ensign,  questioning  and  sifting  his  representations, 
throwing  away  a  part,  and  yet  finally  absorbing  just 
what  was  designed  for  him.  "  'Sblood  but  you 
will  not  hear  me  "  is  lago's  first  artful  expostula- 
tion, and  he  has  to  repeat  it  often  in  substance. 
Roderigo  is  tricked  into  a  belief  of  passing  judg- 
ment on  lago's  blunt  excesses  of  opinion  and 
speech.  Thus,  he  disputes  his  idea  of  love  as  a  scion 
of  base  desire,  rejects  his  characterization  of  Des- 
demona  as  basely  overdrawn,  and  indeed  does  not 
in  more  than  a  single  instance  accept  one  of  lago's 
statements  in  its  entirety. 

As  it  was  a  part  of  the  mental  habit  of  Roderigo, 
in  which  he  had  been  humored  by  lago,  to  correct 
the  ancient's  coarse  excesses  of  thought  with  his 


lAGO  AND  HIS  DUPE.  323 

supposed  finer  perception,  he  did  this  in  reform- 
ing and  bettering  the  temptation,  just  as  he  had 
done  it  before  in  reforming  and  bettering  the  pic- 
ture of  Desdemona's  character.  Just  as  he  cut 
down  and  moderated  lago's  gross  picture  of  Desde- 
mona's  motives,  so  does  he  reduce  the  even  grosser 
prophecy  of  her  experiences  with  Othello;  for  if 
lago,  in  foul  excess,  spoke  only  of  winning  her  after 
she  was  sated  in  body  of  the  Moor,  Roderigo,  in  his 
somewhat  better  thought,  must  surely  have  said  to 
himself.  Long,  long  before. 

lago  fixed  Roderigo^s  prescription  according  to 
the  precise  constitution,  habit,  and  assimilative 
power  of  the  patient.  Knowing  Roderigo's  dispo- 
sition, lago  gave  him  not  pure  albumen,  but  the 
bulk  and  waste  matter  needed  to  aid  his  mental  di- 
gestion; held  before  him  the  coarse  prospect  of  suc- 
ceeding Othello,  well  knowing  the  salacious  im- 
agination would  be  thereby  stimulated  into  rear- 
ranging the  materials  and  forming  a  more  enticing 
and  more  cherishable  temptation  for  itself.  If  we 
have  put  before  us  an  allurement  as  possible  next 
week  or  next  month,  shall  we  not  be  eager  to  im- 
prove on  such  slow,  belated  suggestion  and  per- 
ceive the  delight  quicker  and  nearer  at  hand — as 
something  to  be  seized  at  once?  Or  if  some  coarse 
wretch  picture  it  to  us  in  the  debasing  colors  of  his 
own  mind,  shall  not  our  finer  perception  be 
aroused  to  grasp  it  in  the  more  appropriate  and 
alluring  form  suited  to  us?  And  if  we  thus  catch 
at  insidious  suggestions,  advanced  as  such  and  for 
the  very  purpose  that  we  may  throw  away  a  part 


324  THE   OTHELLO. 

and  remold  the  rest  in  the  warmth  of  our  own 
minds,  can  we  ever  be  duped  so  completely  as  in  the 
hour  when  we  suspect  it  least? 

lago's  first  emergency  wath  Roderigo  was  at  the 
close  of  the  trial  scene,  when  Othello  passed  off 
flushed  with  triumph,  leaving  the  Venetian  sen- 
sualist and  his  secret  hopes  utterly  cast  down.  To 
revive  a  belief  in  the  possibility  of  winning  Desde- 
mona  was  then  lago's  supreme  need,  not,  as  later, 
to  show  she  was  yet  worth  winning.  Roderigo  had 
listened  to  the  lofty  pledge  of  the  Moor  which  had 
so  swept  the  Senate;  he  had  heard  the  arrange- 
ments for  the  voyage  in  separate  ships.  Whether 
he  believed  the  platonic  marriage  could  or  would 
endure  permanently,  we  need  not  stop  to  ask,  since 
Roderigo  knew  the  union  must  of  necessity  re- 
m.ain  unconsummate  until  after  the  ocean  voyage. 
To  a  Venetian  shipboard  was  a  place  for  love  fair 
or  foul.  Invited  on  the  vessel  with  the  young 
maiden  wife;  to  have  the  insidious  aid  of  her  chosen 
protector  and  with  the  nominal  husband  far  distant 
on  another  ship — what  a  prospect  for  the  Venetian 
rouet  This,  however,  was  one  of  the  pictures 
which  a  man  of  lago's  craft  would  never  color 
truly,  but  would  leave  largely  to  the  imagination 
and  assumed  better  judgment  of  his  dupe,  who, 
chuckling  to  himself,  might  mutter  "  Ha,  'tis  better 
than  you  think."  Listening  to  lago's  scortatory 
suggestions  of  winning  Desdemona  from  the  Moor 
months  hence  at  Cyprus,  after  the  platonic  union 
should  have  come  to  ruin  and  the  blackamoor  be 
wearied   of   the   miscegenation,   Roderigo's   brain 


tAGO  AND  HIS  DUPE.  3^5 

could  not  fail  to  flash  with  the  quick  hope  of  an 
earlier  and  better  opportunity  during  the  voyage, 
or  soon  after  reaching  the  island  and  while  the  mar- 
riage was  yet  unconsummate.  But  Roderigo  had 
to  conceive  that:  lago  would  not  whisper  it. 

There  was  a  deep  reason  why  lago  wanted  ap- 
pearances to  picture  him  to  Roderigo  as  coarse  and 
crude — dull  of  sight  and  slow  to  see  fine  allure- 
ments. Roderigo  was,  unlike  Othello,  suspicious, 
not  trusting.  He  was  to  some  extent  on  the  in- 
side; knew  lago  as  a  confessed  villain,  and  yet  was 
finally  the  worst  dupe  of  all,  being  hoodwinked  into 
thinking  the  ancient  a  blunt,  coar'^e  scoundrel,  and 
dealing  with  him  as  such,  when  he  was  really  the 
subtlest  of  knaves.  lago  told  him  better — and 
then  acted  in  a  way  to  contradict  his  words. 
**  Seeming  so  for  my  peculiar  end."  "  I  am  not 
what  I  am."  Suspecting  at  times  that  he  was  being 
dafifed  with  some  new  device,  and  that  the  ancient's 
words  and  intents  were  no  kin,  Roderigo  yet 
thought  lago's  boasts  of  subtlety — of  never  per- 
mitting outward  action  to  demonstrate  the  native 
act  and  figure  oA  the  heart — only  coarse  egotism. 

Would  a  really  crafty  and  subtle  tempter  have 
passed  over  the  opportunity  of  the  voyage  to  sug- 
gest the  later  and  viler  one — **  leave  that  last  which 
concerns  him  first"?  Seeming  not  to  see  the  op- 
portunity of  the  voyage,  even  when  working  the 
dupe  with  it  most  effectually,  lago  created  upon 
Roderigo  just  the  impression  he  desired — that  of 
being  a  fellow  of  some  craft,  but  a  boaster;  a  rough 
worker,  sure  to  miss  fine  opportunities  and  effects; 


326  THE   OTHELLO. 

and  valuable  as  an  ally  only  because  of  his  close  and 
confidential  position  with  Desdemona. 

Roderigo  was  a  man  to  be  gulled  by  the  fine 
temptation  which  lago  caused  him  to  spin  for  him- 
self, not  by  the  coarse  one  of  the  ancient's  open 
speech.  Shakespeare  dearly  loved  lords  and  gen- 
tlemen; and  we  may  be  sure  he  would  not  allow 
a  man  of  Roderigo's  rank  to  be  overcome  by  utterly 
base  and  scurvy  temptation.  Roderigo's  designs 
against  Desdemona  properly  demeaned  him  be- 
low his  true  position;  caused  him  to  sell  his 
land  and  waste  his  means;  degraded  his  mind^ 
character,  and  conduct;  and  subjected  him  even 
to  the  insolence  of  lago;  but  we  cannot  think 
Shakespeare  would  go  beyond  these  dramatic 
necessities  or  proprieties  and  reduce  him  to 
the  level  of  a  contemptible  popinjay.  That 
would  be  against  Shakespeare's  set  prejudices, 
against  the  dramatic  needs,  and  must  greatly  im- 
pair the  displayed  art  of  lago.  For  a  "  gentle- 
man "  to  be  "  gull'd  "  was  something  unusual,  ex- 
traordinary; a  rare  stroke  of  villainy  which  only 
a  surpassingly  cunning  rogue  could  accomplish; 
and  even  in  the  hour  when  such  a  man  was  an  un- 
conscious victim,  he  ought  to  preserve  some  of  the 
superiority  which  belonged  to  his  rank  and  feel 
some  contempt  and  distaste  for  the  coarse  lagoish 
suggestions  put  before  him.  That  was  just  what 
Roderigo  did,  or  thought  he  did;  and  yet  at  that 
very  moment  of  pride  and  assumed  superiority  he 
was  lago's  most  signal  dupe. 

Arm  in  arm  with  Roderigo,  and  keeping  step 


I  A  GO  AND  HIS  DUPE.  327 

with  ihim  through  all  his  turns,  qualms,  and  revolts; 
winding  the  boa-folds  ever  tighter — confessing  him- 
self a  profound  villain  when  he  knew  Roderigo 
would  never  take  a  boaster's  word  as  an  index  to 
really  super-subtle  guile;  using  the  art  which  most 
thoroughly  conceals  art,  even  when  suggesting  the 
capture  of  the  discarded  wife  under  circumstances 
which  must  compel  the  victim  to  think  only  of  the 
virgin  bride  instead,  lago's  methods  are  those  of 
an  astute  and  transcendent  intellectual  villainy  capa- 
ble of  ensnaring  soul  and  body  at  once,  and  yet 
never  to  be  appreciated  until  the  truth  of  the  wed- 
ding plot  and  the  arrested  marriage  is  first  fully 
perceived. 

Meeting  other  difficulties,  the  unconsummate 
marriage  does  not  fail  to  throw  light  on  the  great 
and  otherwise  hopelessly  dark  one  of  no  credible 
cause  for  lago's  malice  toward  Othello — his  "  mo- 
tiveless malignity,"  as  Coleridge  terms  it.  During 
the  first  two  acts  lago's  desire  for  revenge  on 
Othello  remained  without  any  distinct  plan — as 
vague  or  lacking  in  method  as  it  was  in  any  fit 
cause;  his  villainous  purpose  was  not  concentrated 
or  crystallized  into  a  concrete  form  until  the  truth 
of  the  marriage  was  unfolded  before  his  eyes,  and 
he  saw  superadded  to  the  opportunity  for  ven- 
geance on  Othello  the  even  choicer  one  of  wreck- 
ing a  relation  of  surpassing  beauty  merely  for  the 
pleasure  of  destroying  it.  lago  had  an  abnormal, 
almost  maniacal,  desire  to  wreck  virtuous  people; 
the  better  they  were  the  more  eager  he  was  to  de- 
stroy them.     Goodness  was  the  red  flag  to  him. 


3*8  THE   OTHELLO. 

and  this  marriage  of  super-elevation,  when  once 
he  perceived  its  true  nature,  stimulated  and  quick- 
ened his  destrrxtive  spirit  as  the  sight  of  prey  whets 
the  appetite  of  a  carnivorous  animal.  Moreover, 
the  peculiar  marriage,  while  it  heightened  his  de- 
sire to  wreck  Othello,  also  suggested  to  him  a 
peculiarly  tempting,  effective,  cruel  way  to  accom- 
plish it. 

For  quite  a  time  indeed  after  he  formed  his  gen- 
eral idea  of  throwing  Othello  into  a  jealousy,  lago's 
plan  had  remained  half  formed,  nebulous.  ''  'Tis 
here,  but  yet  confused  "  is  the  way  he  describes  it 
even  so  late  as  in  the  second  act,  just  before  the 
nuptial  celebration.  It  was  that  event  which  pre- 
cipitated his  plans  and  purposes  into  a  final  form 
for  action.  It  was  only  when  the  truth  of  the  mar- 
riage appeared  that  lago  completed  his  plan,  and  he 
did  it  then  quickly.  Taking  the  vilest  view  of  the 
union  at  first,  lago  had  admitted  to  himself,  after 
Othello's  renunciation  before  the  Senate,  t'hat  the 
Moor  would  likely  prove  "  a  most  dear  husband," 
but  it  took  the  disclosures  of  the  nuptial  night  to 
convince  him  fully.  He  was  not  present  when  the 
Moor  parted  from  his  bride  at  the  threshold 
of  the  nuptial  chamber,  but  he  took  part  in  the 
night  brawl  and  noticed  how  it  summoned  Othello 
and  Desdemona  at  different  times  and  from  dif- 
ferent apartments,  and  in  addition  he  knew  of 
Emilia's  nightly  attendance  on  Desdemona.  He 
could  doubt  no  longer,  and,  seeing  a  relation  of  ex- 
traordinary beauty,  he  was  seized  with  the  ambition 
of  destroying  it  and  the  parties  to  it  at  one  fell  blow, 


I  AGO  AND  HIS  DUPE.  3^9 

the  twofold  scheme  of  villainy  coming  at  once  to  a 
head. 

Convinced  by  the  nuptial  celebration,  lagfo  has 
thereafter  nothing  more  to  say  of  the  night  being 
made  wanton  with  Desdemona,  but  significantly  de- 
clares Othello  has  given  himself  up  to  "  the  con- 
templation, mark,  and  denotement  of  her  parts  and 
graces  " — conduct  most  platonic  and  striking  in 
contrast  with  what  lago  had  previously  expected 
and  predicted.  More  significant  still  is  his  picture 
of  Desdemona's  state.  **  Her  appetite  shall  play 
the  god  with  his  weak  function."  To  deflect 
or  turn  such  goodness  is  a  prospect  for  imps  of 
darkness;  and,  when  he  once  sees  it,  lago  eagerly 
completes  his  plot  and  pants  for  immediate  action. 
He  has  every  inducement,  every  opportunity,  now. 
He  will  "  turn  her  virtue  into  pitch  "  and  "  out  of 
her  own  goodness  make  the  net  that  shall  enmesh 
them  all."  He  will  "  undo  her  credit  with  the 
Moor " — a  credit  which  is  not  simply  that  of  a 
loyal  wife  such  as  may  be  found  every  day  and  on 
every  hand,  but  the  peculiarly  rare  and  tempting 
one  of  a  creature  angelical  in  super-elevation  and 
against  whom  devils  like  lago  are  always  inspired 
to  strike  hardest  and  quickest. 

Moved  to  destroy  the  marriage  simply  because 
of  its  surpassing  innocence  and  beauty,  lago  ex- 
hibits the  spirit  of  a  Mephistopheles,  and  yet  is 
caused  to  appear  to  us  a  man  rather  than  pure 
devil.  We  are  hardly  willing  to  think  palliation  or 
extenuation  possible  in  his  case,  and  yet  he  inter- 
ests us  as  a  fellow-creature.     There  is  a  touch  of 


33<^  THE  OTHELLO. 

humanity  and  human  interest,  even  the  fellow-feel- 
ing, concerning  him.  It  will  be  found,  I  think,  on 
full  consideration  that  the  Shakespearean  method 
of  arousing  fellow-feeling  just  where  we  think  it 
most  impossible  (so  powerfully  invoked  in  this 
play  as  to  transform  in  thought  a  prospective  mis- 
cegenation) overlaps  from  the  characters  of  Othello 
and  Desdemona  and  extends  to  lago  with  strength 
sufificient  to  save  him  from  the  sheer  horror  and 
repulsion  of  diabolism  and  effectively  touch  a 
chord  of  human  interest.  The  truth  is,  we  feel  our- 
selves to  be  in  the  position  lago  falsely  claimed  for 
himself:  *'  I  lack  iniquity  to  do  me  service."  We 
think  it  is  conscience  which  keeps  us  from  being  as 
successful,  rich,  dominant,  or  famous  as  we  might 
be  if  our  scruples  were  not  so  great;  hence  a  feeling 
of  interest  and  fascination  in  a  man  who  has  cast 
all  that  aside  and  lets  nothing  interfere  with  his 
purposes,  but  strikes  as  wantonly  as  unchecked 
greed  or  ambition  can  dictate.  So  is  this  fiend 
actually  kept  in  touch  with  humanity  and  caused 
to  affect  us  with  a  fellow-feeling.  We  could  never 
be  wanton  as  he,  yet  must  furtively,  half  con- 
sciously, think  of  being  somewhat  like  him — some 
degrees  more  forceful  and  unscrupulous  than  we 
are.  Ah,  what  success  then!  If  we  had  less  con- 
science and  fewer  scruples — if  we  could  strike  or 
scheme  with  something  of  lago's  relentless  power 
and  determination — how  rich  we  might  be,  how 
successful,  where  now  we  fail!  lago  touches  a  fel- 
low-chord, not  of  pity  or  of  sympathy,  but  of  a 
distant,  dreamy,  smoldering  half-envy. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  FINAL  LESSON. 

Not  undervaluing  Shakespeare  as  a  poet  and 
dramatist,  we  have  come  in  later  days  to  prize  him 
most  as  an  interpreter  of  human  life.  It  has  been 
said  to  be  inconceivable  that  his  influence  as  such 
should  ever  decline,  so  strongly  and  truly  does  he 
speak  to  humanity  of  its  mysteries  and  perplexi- 
ties. What,  then,  is  his  final  message  to  us.  in  Jhe 
"Othello'^? 

After  we  have  solved  j;he  long-standing  enigma 
of  a  supposed  base  amalgamation  and  seen  how 
the  device  of  the  arrested  marriage  illumined  the 
union  of  Othello  and  Desdemona  with  beauty,  we 
can  advance  to  the  final  difficulty  of  characters  so 
worthy  and  ennobled  being  brought  to  a  dreadful 
fate. 

^  We  are  not  to  look^fqr  jome  implied  triumph  of 
abstracfgoo^Tover  evil.  Shakespeare  was  liever 
truer  to  dramatic  art,  never  more  direct  or  vivid, 
than  in  the  catastrophe  of  this  play.  After  the  mar- 
riage is  invested  with  wondrous  mitigation  and 
caused  to  sound  every  required  note  of  dramatic 
art  in  moving  the  heart,  it  still  stands  out  patheti- 
cally but  inexorably  as  one  from  which  no  good 
could  come.  Arrested  or  deflected,  it  called  for  the 
impossible;  it  could  not  long  survive.     Kept  pla- 

331 


33^  THE  OTHELLO. 

tonic,  it  was  still  in  appearance  and  suggestion  an 
anomaly,  a  seeming  wrong,  an  offense  to  family 
life.  The  sober,  sane,  eminently  Shakespearean 
test  of  fitness  for  the  natural  end  and  function  of 
marriage  is  the  one  that  inevitably  condemns  the 
union  of  Othello  and  Desdemona  and  compels  us 
to  see  it  as  one  that  could  lead  only  to  disaster, 
lago,  with  all  his  machinations,  was  only  the 
malign  agency  brought  into  play  when  Nemesis 
was  due. 

It  abates  nothing  finally  that  the  marriage  was 
really  free  of  natural  offense.  That  mitigates  and 
extenuates  it  touchingly  to  our  sympathies,  ele- 
vates the  plot  to  the  region  of  refined  literary  art; 
but  there  remains,  even  after  we  have  given  in  to 
the  enforced  sympathy,  the  Shakespearean  lesson 
of  condemnation  for  that  which  offends  hopelessly 
against  marriage  in  appearance,  and  in  the  eyes  of 
the  world.  Here  is  the  general  ethical  lesson 
vitally  incorporate  with  the  dramatic  one.  With 
Shakespeare  wedlock  must  be  above  suspicion. 
Society  must  punish  even  the  appearance  of  dis- 
honor to  the  fountain  of  family  life.  Even  as  our 
tears  flow,  we  must  admit  at  last  that  only  inexor- 
able justice  was  visited  on  Othello  and  Desdemona. 
Beautiful  in  sentiment,  their  marriage  was  an 
offense  against  society  and  a  seeming  blot  on  fam- 
ily life  and  propriety.  The  one  thing  Shakespeare 
could  not  permit  it  to  have  was  continuous  and 
prosperous  existence.  He  alone  could  bring  a 
black-white  marriage  up  to  the  elevation  of  the 
beautiful  and  the  pathetic;  not  even  he  could  give 


THE  FINAL  LESSON.  333 

it  permanent  and  prosperous  life.  We  cannot,  even 
at  command  of  the  loftiest  sentiment,  depart  too  far 
from  the  safe  ways  of  nature  and  of  the  society  to 
which  we  belong — not  even  in  appearance.  More 
profoundly  than  he  knew  did  Othello  speak  a  truth : 

"  They  that  mean  virtuously  and  yet  do  so, 
The  devil  their  virtue  tempts,  and  they  tempt  heaven." 

So  was  his  manly  trust  in  Desdemona  tempted, 
shaken,  and  betrayed  through  his  own  error.  The 
general  ethical  lesson  is  not  abstract  nor  in  any  way 
opposed  to  the  dramatic  one,  but  part  and  parcel  of 
it;  and  it  is  just  here  that  the  art  of  the  play  sur- 
passes all  that  modern  readers  have  known.  It  is 
the  long-unseen  but  wonderful  device  of  the  ar- 
rested marriage  which  pervades  the  whole  play 
(even  the  villainy  of  lago  and  the  creduHty  of 
Roderigo  being  adjusted  to  it)  and  displays 
throughout  the  underplot  the  cunning  art  of 
Shakespeare;  supplying  the  mitigation  as  it  trans- 
forms the  dramatically  and  alarmingly  proposed 
miscegenation  until  it  becomes  a  thing  of  hope; 
displaying  heavenly  beauty  where  we  had  looked 
expecting  to  see  only  vile  repulsion;  sweeping  us 
on  past  the  successive  stages  of  surprise,  contrast, 
and  sympathetic  emotional  revolution  up  to  the 
very  ecstacy  of  woe,  and  then  leaving  us  face  to  face 
with  the  stern  logical  justification  of  the  Moor  and 
his  bride  come  to  ruin  as  the  inevitable  consequence 
of  a  union  essentially  wrong  however  extenuated 
by  pathos  and  beauty.  But  without  the  light  of  the 
platonic  marriage  the  world  has  been  able  to  see 


334  THE   OTHELLO. 

for  centuries  only  a  base,  revolting  amalgamation, 
with  no  play  of  extenuating  art  and  a  catastrophe 
appropriate  only  to  animal  jealousy  and  miscege- 
nation or  to  be  dismissed  as  an  enigma.  Far  from 
these  mistaken  views,  it  is  instead  the  world's  high- 
est example  of  perfected  dramatic  art,  embodying  in 
one  display  the  concentrated  power  and  beauty  of 
alarm,  contrast,  thrilling  redemption,  and  yet  at 
last  the  inexorable  ruin  of  the  tragic  fault. 

What  if  Shakespeare  had  lived,  say,  two  cen- 
turies earlier,  had  been  devoted  to  the  (Church,  and 
this  wonderful  dramatic  genius  of  his  had  been 
called  to  the  writing  of  a  miracle  play?  Would  he 
then  have  attempted  another  step?  If  so,  what 
might  we  have  in  literature  to-day?  Would  he 
have  sought  by  human  means  to  denote  the  divinely 
arrested  marriage  and  consecration  to  which  his 
art  points  as  the  culmination  of  a  truth  passing  be- 
yond the  touch  of  man?  Or  would  he  have  de- 
clined the  task — turned  away  like  the  character  in 
Greek  tragedy  who,  when  smitten  with  an  emotion 
too  great  for  language,  spoke  not  a  word,  but  hid 
his  face  from  sight? 

If  the  peculiar  and  reverent  delicacy  of  Shakes- 
peare in  picturing  Desdemona's  state  in  marriage, 
and  the  strong  demonstration  of  an  arrested  union 
as  beyond  the  pale  of  unaided  human  effort  or  con- 
tent, do  not  reflect  the  belief  of  the  poet  in  respect 
to  the  marriage  of  Joseph  and  Mary  ahd  the  In- 
carnation, we  have  at  least  other  light  of  in- 
estimable value  in  the  new  interpretation.  We  do 
not  now  lack  an  answer  to  the  long-standing  com- 


THE  FINAL  LESSON.  335 

plaint  against  Shakespeare  of  indifference  to  the 
claims  of  human  nature  itself,  of  surrender  to  race 
prejudice,  and  of  saving  all  the  good  of  life  for  the 
favorites  of  rank  and  fortune.  With  Othello  in  the 
true  light,  we  see  that  Shakespeare  has  caused  a 
man  of  lowly  race,  one  who  had  been  a  slave,  to 
rise  by  his  own  efforts  to  a  post  of  command  over 
white  nobles,  and  to  be  vested  with  sudh  quali- 
ties of  nobility  and  supersensuous  will  as  the  poet 
conferred  on  no  hero  of  his  own  race.  In  the  exal- 
tation of  '*  the  black  Othello  "  in  worldly  success 
and  in  actual  character,  as  now  perceived,  we  have  a 
Shakespearean  protest  against  race  prejudice  and 
an  expression  of  belief  in  the  self-made  man — a 
sweeping  refutation  of  an  accusation  against  the 
poet  which  has  long  stood  without  reply.  If  the 
new  interpretation  give  no  fresh  illustration  of 
Shakespeare^s  art,  it  will  at  least  prove  'him  not 
out  of  sympatliy  with  the  popular  movement  of 
later  ages,  but  one  who  painted  gloriously  the  roy- 
alty and  nobili'ty  of  manhood  itself  in  presenting 
his  noblest,  most  spiritual-minded  hero  as  one  with 
a  black  skin. 

poes  Shakespeare  not  intend  us  to  look  beyond 
the  earthly  fate^  of  Othello  and  Desdemona?  To 
the  world  Ithey  seemed  to  offend  against  a  necessary 
law  of  earthly  marriage  which  guards  the  physical 
integrity  of  races;  and,  so  at  fault,  they  were  ex- 
posed to  the  punishment  society  must  inflict  in  self- 
defense  even  though  the  guilt  was  that  of  ap- 
pearance, not  reality.  If  the  marriage  had  been 
real  and  no  lago  had  appeared,  the  utilitarian  laws 


336  THE   OTHELLO. 

of  society  would  have  cut  the  pair  and  their  de- 
scendants off  from  the  honored  surroundings  of 
home  and  family  so  indispensably  needful  to  the 
happiness  or  content  of  such  characters.  Victims 
of  this  world,*  the  two  pass  over  the  border  of  an- 
other with  faith  and  love  resplendent.  Does  not 
this  reluming  of  love  and  faith  as  this  world  faded 
in  darkness  point  to  another  where  a  better  justice 
is  to  be  done? 

As  usual  with  Shakespeare,  the  characters  stand 
for  types ;  and  the  general  lesson  centers  about  what 
Wendell  calls  "  the  vast  evil  mystery  of  sex." 
Roderigo  is  a  complete  victim.  Cassio,  beset  both 
by  love  of  wine  and  women,  has  yet  some  high  in- 
spirations and  tendencies  toward  better  living.  lago 
and  Emilia  s*how  a  legal  marriage,  but  one  not  ele- 
vated by  true  love;  only  sensuous  in  its  relations. 
Othello  and  Desdemona  stand  for  the  supremely 
countervailing  powers  which  religion  brings  to  bear 
in  the  struggle  against  sensuous  besetment.  The 
Moor  grandly  rises  above  t.  pleasures  of  appetite, 
renouncing  them  absolutely;  he  displays  the  ideal 
of  the  celibate  devotee  when,  thinking  of  Desde- 
mona's  supposed  favor  to  Cassio,  he  declares  he 

*  Dowden,  consenting  by  silence  to  the  theory  which 
takes  the  marriage  of  the  pair  as  actual,  yet  thinks  they 
present  a  consoling  triumph  of  goodness,  regarded  from 
the  standpoint  of  this  world  alone.  Never  could  Shakes- 
peare so  glorify  an  amalgamation.  Even  when  kept 
sacredly  platonic,  the  marriage  is  still  so  opposed  to  the 
decorum  of  refined  society  and  family  life  that  it  could 
never  command  honor  and  success  in  this  world. 


THE  FINAL  LESSON.  337 

had  "  not  wanted  w'hat  was  st'olen."  Desdemona 
is  truer  to  the  heart  and  to  nature,  in  aiming  to 
sanctify  the  physical  and  lose  it  in  the  mental.  The 
purity  and  refinement  of  Desdemona  are  the  more 
striking  since  she  was  not  to  overcome  the  sen- 
suous by  denying,  or  discarding,  but  by  transform- 
ing it  through  love,  self-sacrifice,  and  devotion — 

"...  heaven  me  such  uses  send 
Not  to  pick  bad  from  bad,  but  by  bad  mend  !  " 

Th'aft  is  the  truest  spirit,  but  even  it  is  capable  cA 
misuse,  for  Desdemona  herself  carried  the  ex'alta- 
tion  of  the  mental  over  the  physical  to  an  extent 
not  to  be  endured  when  she  married  with  Othello. 
The  best  of  humanity  struggles  toward  her  level, 
but  happily  will  always  fall  short.  To  and  from  the 
ideal  of  Desdemona  there  are  ebbs  and  tides  in 
philosophy  and  religion,  one  generation  tending  to- 
ward supersensuous  idealism,  another  falling  to 
platonic  affectation,  and  yet  another  striking  some- 
where near  the  happy  mean. 


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